Beveridge Report Essay

Use the documents and your knowledge of the period from 1929 – 1941 to construct your response.

The social welfare in the UK is very different in practice for example benefits and services are delivered at minimum level as the coverage it widespread and can be too costly or even extensive. The social protection in which the welfare state provided is irregular and unpredictable and the services are rationed very tightly. As the services have been contracted out to self-reliant providers the control over the quality and reliability of social protection had been even more difficult to maintain. (Spicker2014)

The report lead to the creation of the Welfare State that includes the National Health Services (NHS). The Beveridge report was not fully implemented by the coalition government until after the general election of 1945 that gave victory to the Labour party. The new prime minister, Clement Attlee, announced he would introduce the welfare state outlined in the 1942 Beveridge Report. The report include the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948 with free medical treatment for all. A national system of benefits was also introduced to provide 'social security' so that the population would be protected from the 'cradle to the grave'. The new system was partly built on the national insurance scheme set up by Lloyd George in 1911. People in work still had to make contributions each week, as did employers, but the benefits provided were now much greater (Bbc.co.uk, 2016).

In the 1900’s during the time of Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency, many major events took place, although, he seemed to know exactly how to respond to each of these events confidently and wisely as always. These events were the Hay- Pauncefote Treaty, The Coal Strike of 1902, the building of the Panama Canal, The Hepburn Act, and Pure Food and Drug Act, Meat Inspection Acts. In 1904, Roosevelt became aware that it was

Welfare has been an arguable topic throughout United States history (“Brief”). Some people agree with it and others do not like it at all. Welfare did not exist until the 1930s during The Great Depression (“Brief”). With millions of people unemployed, Franklin D. Roosevelt developed the welfare system to help these people during the Great Depression (“Brief”). After the Great Depression was over,, the government came up with new programs to help assist the welfare program and help more people in poverty (“Brief”). Some of those programs were Medicaid, public housing, food stamps, and Supplemental Security programs (“Brief”). Theses programs helped and hurt the country at the same time (“Brief”). By having these programs, many people would not look for jobs because they knew they were better off living on welfare (“Brief”).

This essay will examine how the development of the Welfare State and the NHS changed the lives of the people of Britain since its introduction in 1948. To enable me to do so, I will analyse and evaluate the key relevant aspects that happened during that period.

Roosevelt also went after the Northern Securities, a railroad holding company established by J.P. Morgan. Then, he went after Rockefeller's standard oil trust. By the time Roosevelt left office he had attacked twenty five different monopolies. He created the Department of Commerce and Labor to report on any illegal activities that businesses were participating in. This was truly progressive of him, in his attempt to help the little guy.

In America today, just over ten million people are on unemployment insurance, one hundred and ten million people are on welfare, and the total government spending annually is around one hundred and thirty billion dollars (Welfare Statistics). The welfare state is a political system based on the proposition that the government has the individual responsibility to ensure that the minimum standard of living is met for all citizens. Specifically, in the matters of health care, public education, employment, and social security, the welfare state assumes all responsibility. According to John Rawls, “In a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests. The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice“(Rawls). In the 1840s, Otto Von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of Germany, was the father of the modern welfare state. He built the program to win over the support of the working middle class in Germany and ultimately reduce the outflow of immigrants to the U.S., where welfare did not exist (Welfare State). In the United States, not all companies provided workers with benefits, thus the workers appealed to the government, giving rise to the first form of welfare capitalism.

It saw high wages fought for by unions as being a factor in unemployment. They replaced grants with loans from the social fund, benefit eligibility was reduced and payments cut.Pensions decreased, council houses were sold and companies were privatised. Care in the community was introduced encouraging more care by family members (free). They pushed for the nuclear family, outcasting women and ostrecising single mothers.

In 1935, Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act which, among other things, provided for the financial, medical, and material needs of the poor (Komisar 125,128). Since then, there have many additions and reforms to the bill, none of which has served to quell the controversy surrounding the effectiveness of the welfare system in the United States. The main concerns of the distribution of welfare dollars and resources can be answered by the questions ?Who gets assistance?? and ?How much do they receive??. The U.S. welfare system is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, which attempts to answer these questions through a system of minimum incomes, government-calculated poverty levels, number of children, health problems, and many other criteria. This complicated system leads to one of the critiques of the welfare system?that it is too large and inefficient. President Lyndon Johnson declared a ?War on Poverty? in 1964 designed to alleviate the burden of the poor and established the Food Stamp program the next year (Patterson 139). In 1996, a major welfare reform bill was passed that placed time limits on welfare assistance, required able participants to actively seek employment, and implemented additional services for the needy (Patterson 217).

United States Government Welfare began in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt thought of this system as an aid for low-income families whose men were off to war, or injured while at war. The welfare system proved to be beneficial early on by giving families temporary aid, just enough to help them accommodate their family’s needs. Fast forward almost 90 years, and it has become apparent that this one once helpful system, has become flawed. Welfare itself and the ideologies it stands on, contains decent fundamentals; furthermore, this system of aid needs only to be reformed to better meet the needs of today’s society.

The aim of this essay is to discuss and compare the British Welfare system with Germany and Sweden’s welfare systems. A welfare system is the structure of welfare provisions and services that provide a specific social need, but it is not only provided or organised solely by the government (Blakemore, 2001). It is a view that is rooted in individual exchanges between five organisations (State/Government, Market/Private Sector, Family/Kin networks, Local Communities and Civil Society). It reflects the history and cultures of different countries around the world (Haralambos, 2012). It is these providers that assume principal

This essay will consider whether the welfare state has eliminated poverty. It will examine what poverty is and how the definition varies from societies. The essay will look at the aims of the welfare state from conception and how it has changed to present times. The welfare state being analysed is the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It will discuss the nature of the social democratic welfare state and liberal criticisms of the problems this type of state brings. The recent changes to the welfare state will be reviewed and what the consequences of the changes may be. It will then look at recent statistics to determine whether the welfare state has eradicated poverty.

William Beveridge was born 5th March 1879 in India and trained as a lawyer. In 1941, the government authorised a report that Britain should be repaired after world War Two. Beveridge was to take charge of this report. Beveridge produced this report in 1942 and advised the Government should find ways to overcome the deprived and poor the five Giant Evil’s (Appendix 4)

In response to the Beveridge report, Keynesian economics were adapted by the Labour Government to use taxation to fund a welfare state. The key objective being to control inequality and oppression of poverty, through widely available services such as healthcare, education, workers’ rights and welfare support. The Attlee Government (1945 – 1951) nationalised major industries of coal steel and electricity, hoping to regulate the economy (Heywood 2012:109), providing basics services without exploitation through commodification, as a means of ensuring provision of fundamental needs to all of