There seems to be number of debates regarding the creation of the welfare state in Britain among academics. The purpose of this essay is to explore if the Labour government from 1945-50 accurately created the welfare state. This essay will first look at the background of Britain after the war and the general election before Labour came into power in 1945. The paper will define what is meant by the welfare state. It will relate it to the Beveridge report, which presided over the inception of the Welfare State and was underpinned by his liberal leanings. Then, it will analyse how the Labour government's implemented the welfare state basing it on the Beveridge report of the five giant evils which is Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.
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The ideology of the welfare state is to take away the impediment that prevented full equality in society Manning (1999) and Esping-Andersen (1996) argued that a welfare state is a state that seek to meet the necessity and well being of every individual in society in terms of health, housing, education, employment and social security irrespective of the individual circumstances. For example the poor receives cash and in –kind assistance, the elderly receive tax-subsided pension and the jobless receive unemployment allowances. This is what is understood by a welfare state where each individual is being treated equally and cared for by the state (Pierson and Castel, …show more content…
People were living in poverty because they did not have sufficient income to live on. Therefore, in order for the Labour government 1945-50 to create a welfare state and solve the problem of inequality, they introduced the Family Allowance Act 1945, which enabled families with children receive 25p per week to support their family in order for them to have a standard minimum living (Glennerster, 2000). As a result of this, in 1946 the National Insurance was implemented to give benefit or compensation for workers who got injured at work. It was then updated in late 1946 to give benefits to people who are unemployed, widows, and mothers on maternity leave, pensioners, sickness allowance and death grants (Pearce, 1994). This was considered to be a big step in creating a welfare state where every individual is being taken care of in times of need. However the Act was already being represented in the 1944 white paper from the Churchill government. Therefore, all the credit cannot be given to the labour government as the foundation of the Act was implemented in 1946 and was already being built by the Coalition government before the Labour government came into power in 1945 (Bochel,
The ideology of the welfare state is to take away the impediment that prevented full equality in society Manning (1999) and Esping-Andersen (1996) argued that a welfare state is a state that seek to meet the necessity and well being of every individual in society in terms of health, housing, education, employment and social security irrespective of the individual circumstances. For example the poor receives cash and in –kind assistance, the elderly receive tax-subsided pension and the jobless receive unemployment allowances. This is what is understood by a welfare state where each individual is being treated equally and cared for by the state (Pierson and Castel, …show more content…
People were living in poverty because they did not have sufficient income to live on. Therefore, in order for the Labour government 1945-50 to create a welfare state and solve the problem of inequality, they introduced the Family Allowance Act 1945, which enabled families with children receive 25p per week to support their family in order for them to have a standard minimum living (Glennerster, 2000). As a result of this, in 1946 the National Insurance was implemented to give benefit or compensation for workers who got injured at work. It was then updated in late 1946 to give benefits to people who are unemployed, widows, and mothers on maternity leave, pensioners, sickness allowance and death grants (Pearce, 1994). This was considered to be a big step in creating a welfare state where every individual is being taken care of in times of need. However the Act was already being represented in the 1944 white paper from the Churchill government. Therefore, all the credit cannot be given to the labour government as the foundation of the Act was implemented in 1946 and was already being built by the Coalition government before the Labour government came into power in 1945 (Bochel,