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The principle of universalism in the allocation of social benefits, that is the availability of social benefits to everyone as of right, is contrasted with allocation on a selective basis in which benefits are allocated on the basis of need as determined by means testing of income. The increasing drift towards income‐tested benefits is described, and the possible stigma of means testing discussed. The implications of methods of targeting social welfare benefits other than by means testing are discussed; these include age, behaviour (e.g. searching for work, training, and voluntary work), and functional impairment (disability). The lack of transparency of restrictive targeting is noted.

The chapter discusses three periods of policy change in the field of social protection for unemployed people. It explains basic parameters of unemployment protection systems, contrasting contemporary systems with those which existed in the late 1970s. Making use of several indicators, it assess the scale and profile of change in each country. The different reform profiles are identified and their genesis discussed in the context of major legislative changes. It argues that the specific links between unemployment protection systems and respective national political economy structures have impacted strongly on the emerging reform profiles. Dynamic power relations within and across government parties, as well as contextual changes impeded or facilitated policies, thus explaining cross-national variations in the pace and profile of reform.

Discusses social spending, its extent, and issues in the design of social security programmes, examining both public and private spending on areas that have traditionally come under the heading of the ‘welfare state’. Looks at public social spending in the UK, recent trends in it, and its relationship with government spending as a whole, including issues connected with the changing structure of social security, particularly the balance between ‘universal’ and means-tested benefits. Compares trends in social spending in the UK with those in other industrialized countries. Presents information on the changing roles over the last 20 years of public and private sectors in education, health care, income maintenance, housing, and personal care, distinguishing their roles in three different ways, depending on who is the provider of a service, who pays for it, and who is in control. Finally, examines public attitudes to social spending and its distribution, particularly towards means-testing, perceived problems in the social security system, and at whether the views of those using private welfare services towards the welfare state differ from others.

This chapter focuses on the Social Security Act and the disparate treatment of blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants in the administration of Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Aid to Dependent Children, and Old Age Assistance. Though framed as legislation that would help the “average citizen,” scholars have shown that the Social Security Act in fact excluded the vast majority of blacks from the most generous social insurance programs, relegating them to meager, decentralized, and demeaning means-tested programs. European immigrants, by contrast, benefited from many of the provisions of the Social Security Act, and in at least some respects, they benefited more than even native-born whites. The net result of these policies was that blacks were disproportionately shunted into categorical assistance programs with low benefit levels, European immigrants were disproportionately covered under social insurance regardless of citizenship, and Mexicans were often shut out altogether.

This chapter demonstrates the types of questions one could ask about a continuous random variable of interest and answer using statistical inference. It provides conceptual preparation for understanding statistical inference, demonstrates how to get data ready for analysis in R, and then illustrates how to conduct two types of statistical inferences—null hypothesis testing and confidence interval construction—regarding the population attributes of a continuous random variable, using sample data. Both the one-sample t-test and the difference-of-means test are presented. Two key points in this chapter are worth noting. First, statistical inference is primarily concerned about figuring out population attributes using sample data. Hence, it is not the same as causal inference. Second, statistical inference can help to answer various questions of substantive interest. This chapter focuses on statistical inferences regarding one continuous random outcome variable.

The previous chapter suggests that progress has been made in tackling some of the problems outlined earlier in the book. However, the pressures on social spending and on distribution do not stand still, and the constraints and pressures under which policy operates may change in the coming years. This chapter examines whether economic growth eases or worsens the pressures on public finances. It looks at the biggest source of pressure on spending, the ageing population, particularly pressures on spending on pensions. The final section discusses a different kind of constraint, particularly relevant to the strategies pursued since 1997, resulting from the spread of different kinds of means-testing, and asks whether we are reaching the limits to that kind of approach.

This chapter deals with the two liberal regime countries — the US and the UK — and how the defining properties of the liberal welfare regime, such as heavy reliance on means tested benefits and market solutions, have influenced immigrants' social rights. The chapter begins with the USA, which has been regarded as the prototype of the liberal welfare regime, and then moves to the UK. For each country, the basic features of social provision, the nature of the incorporation regime, and the broad contours of immigration are discussed. Then formal inclusion of immigrants in social provision, the impact of retrenchment, welfare state restructuring, and changes in the incorporation regime on immigrants' social rights are examined. The chapter concludes with a comparison of the two countries' welfare regimes and incorporation regimes, emphasizing how similarities and differences affect immigrants' social rights.

This chapter describes the shift towards the selective targeting of welfare in both Western and Eastern European countries in recent years. It discusses the pros and cons of means testing in relation to the broad aims of social policy: to do away with poverty, social injustice, and dependency, and to integrate all groups and classes into society. The chapter shows that means testing demotivates poor people from trying to be better off, because of the effects of the poverty trap; the high rates of marginal tax to which they are exposed. Means testing also provides major obstacles to social exchange and participation and creates ineffective delivery of social rights, since a substantial non-take-up of benefits is inherent in the system.

This chapter estimates impacts of the expanding social safety net on the major macroeconomic variables—including GDP, consumption, investment, and labor hours—in a dynamic economic model with capital accumulation. Much of the aggregate changes in the labor market since 2007 can be interpreted as the result of changes in marginal tax rates or an impulse with similar characteristics. Moreover, the marginal tax rate changes coming from safety net expansions were enough to generate changes in the major macro aggregates that resemble the actual changes in direction, amount, and timing. The neoclassical growth model also offers an unconventional causal interpretation of the sharp drops in consumption, investment, and capital market values during 2008: the drops were, largely, a reaction to, and anticipation of, labor market contractions created by the expanding social safety net. In this view, it is incorrect to attribute the labor market contraction to drops in investment and consumer spending.

This chapter draws together the themes of the previous two chapters to analyse how the unemployed responded to the means test. While many studies of the unemployed have noted that the movement against the means test generated the largest interwar demonstrations, there has been little attempt to look at these movements in detail. By comparing the anti-means test protests in south Wales and the north-east of England, this chapter considers how protests were shaped by place, political culture and traditions. The attempts to develop a sustained movement of the unemployed by the Communist Party and the affiliated National Unemployment Workers’ Movement are contrasted to the leadership offered by the Labour Party and trade unions. The protests of unemployed and employed, men and women and the policing of the marchers, are considered at a local, regional and national level. While the marches of the unemployed may have captured the public imagination, this chapter is also concerned with the other ways in which the voice of protest could be expressed.

This chapter sets out the reasons for Peter's impassioned arguments against means tests and in favour of universalism: a campaign which began in the 1950s, in relation to failures of the British social security system, and ended with his critique of The World Bank's promotion of selectivity in developing economies in his final book Building decent societies. It explores the reasons why means-tested benefits systems have consistently been favoured by governments despite, and sometimes because, they do not reach all those for whom they are intended. It notes that Peter criticizes means tests for creating a hierarchy and a ‘division of the population into first-class and second-class citizens’, between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’, between different categories of claimants and between claimants and taxpayers. It thus points out, the case for universalism is based on far more than its technical superiority to means-tested benefits — has a crucial role to play in the promotion of social justice and solidarity.

This chapter examines the complex relationship between the unemployed, local government officials, elected councillors and Whitehall. It focuses on the introduction of a household means test, by the newly formed National Government, as a requirement for benefit for all long-term unemployed men and women. The Public Assistance Committees were left to administer the test which was fashioned on the old poor law examination. Investigating the financial circumstances of the respectable working-class, who had little previous contact with the PAC, was highly controversial and was potentially political suicide. Attempts to generously administer the test, from Labour Party councillors in particular, led to extreme variations in allowances and interventions from the Ministry of Labour including replacing local authority administrations. The debates over the means test are revealing of governmental and popular attitudes towards the unemployed and working-class families, and the framing of social policy. The importance of the notion of respectability in working-class communities and the shift in attitudes towards receiving state benefits is considered.

This chapter examines the sustained attack on the social benefits, increasing in intensity across the period of Thatcher’s premiership. These undermined social insurance and (in interaction with other policies) contributed to the increase of poverty. They were supported by a sustained cluster of arguments—that poverty is not a problem, that people must do more to help themselves, and that in the long run a successful economy will bring income gains for all—which have created an ideological legacy (sustained by her successors, and not only her Conservative ones), which has muted the role concerns about poverty and inequality play on the political agenda.

In this chapter, the author provides estimates of the long term cost of having a universal social pension scheme that offers every individual aged over 65 a fixed monthly payment. Universal schemes are particularly costly because everyone is eligible, and that Hong Kong's population is ageing rapidly and the total population growth is slowing down. This implies that more recipients will have to be supported by fewer contributors to the schemes. This chapter also compares the means-tested schemes with the universal non-means-tested ones. They are compared in terms of the tax revenue increase required to finance the larger old age social security expenditures as well as the years it will take to deplete the accumulated fiscal reserves of $600 billion. The author concludes that a modest payout under the means-tested scheme to help the impoverished in their old age is the only sensible policy option for Hong Kong.

This chapter traces changes in immigrants' social rights first in the United States and then in the United Kingdom. The politics of inclusion and exclusion in the US have centered on the extension and contraction of immigrants' welfare rights. In Britain the universalism of the early postwar welfare state encompassed all residents, and the politics of inclusion have been less concerned with the extension of social rights to immigrants but rather with strengthening their social rights through anti-discrimination legislation. The contraction of immigrants' social rights, however, resulted in quite similar policy outputs — lengthy bans on utilizing means tested benefits — but the politics behind the policies was quite different. The concluding discussion summarizes the contrasts and similarities in the politics of exclusion in the two countries.

The chapter begins with a general section on social citizenship, which covers its theoretical framework and the context of how social citizenship has been understood and debated in the UK, leading to New Labour’s philosophy on social citizenship. As the main area in which this philosophy has been translated into policy has been the social security system, this is the main focus of the policy analysis. The central section discusses the relationship between rights and responsibilities in the social security system. The chapter also assesses the social investment approach, with particular reference to policy in the areas of child poverty, childcare, and social exclusion, and the shift to greater emphasis on means-testing in the name of “progressive universalism.” The conclusion briefly reflects on the factors underlying the shift in social citizenship and looks ahead to the implications of the change of government.

The conclusion explains the differences in the response to the means test in south Wales and the north-east of England and highlights the importance of place, topography and political culture. Conclusions are drawn about the significance of traditions of militancy, how the identity and the perception of the unemployed influenced leadership for collective action and how protest could be expressed through a variety of mediums and the impact of this. The central points about the lasting impact of the means test are placed within the context of the worldwide depression and the coming of the Second World War. Finally, the book ends with a discussion of the importance of history of the unemployed and how historians approach collective action from those groups on the margins of society.

This chapter provides a case study of the most common and particularly successful cash transfer programme, ‘social’ (non-contributory) pensions, based on a unique database that covers all social pensions in all countries of the global South, with differentiated variables. The chapter charts the massive spread of social pensions since the 1990s, and investigates if and how social pensions have created social citizenship rights for older persons. While ‘universal’ (non-means-tested) social pensions are often seen as embodying social citizenship rights, in this chapter a more complex social citizenship index is constructed. Using this index, a fuzzy set analysis reveals that the contribution of social pensions to social citizenship cuts across the distinction ‘universal’ vs. means-tested. Moreover, social pensions are located in the overall arrangement of old-age security in a country, giving rise to four models of social citizenship in old age.

This chapter serves as an historiographical introduction to the major themes of the book. It provides a critique of the historiography of the interwar depression and examines the evolution of studies of unemployed protest movements. The case for the value of regional comparative histories as a way of exploring the history of the depression is made. The regions of south Wales and the north-east of England are introduced. One of the purposes of the book is to compare the protests of the unemployed. To this end, the nature of industrialisation, work practices, trade unionism, political culture and gender relations within south Wales and the north-east are compared. The major themes of the work and the importance of examining the means test are outlined.