Liberals - how effective Flashcards
Factors
*Childhood Poverty
*Old Age
*Sickness
*Unemployment
Background
*At the beginning of the 20th century, most of the British working classes lived in extreme poverty without intervention.
*However, by 1914 the Liberal government had mostly abandoned its “Laissez-fair” attitude and introduced social welfare reforms to improve the lives of the poor.
* When the Liberals came to power in 1906 they did not have a programme of radical reforms already written up, and had not really intended to introduce social reforms. However, it soon became clear to the government that reforms were needed on a wide range of social issues.
Line of Argument
The view that the Liberal social welfare reforms were effective in meeting the needs of the British poor is valid to a limited extend, tailing to effectively deal with key causes of poverty, such as housing, and education, and having only a limited effect on poverty in the early 20th century Britain.
Childhood poverty (1)
*(K) Free School Meals Act (1906) allowed local authorities to slightly raise local taxes to pay for feeding poor children.
*(A) The offer of a free meal encouraged parents to send their children to school, meaning families had less pressure to feed their children, and children got a better education.
*(A+) The act was not compulsory and by 1913 less than half of Britains local authorities were providing the meals.
Childhood poverty (2)
*(K) Medical Inspections Act (1907) made it compulsory that all primary school-aged children would receive three medical inspections over the course of their school career.
*(A) This aided in detecting childhood illnesses, which allowed families to seek medical aid for illnesses that they may not have been aware of previously.
*(A+) Other than for Tuberculosis, the government would not provide any medical care for the illnesses these inspections uncovered, and treatment was not affordable to the working classes.
Childhood poverty (E)
Limited effectiveness, the Free School Meals Act (1906) provided millions with one good meal a day but was ultimately a step away from self-help and not nearly far-reaching enough to effectively combat national poverty, and while the Medical Inspections Act (1907) shows the government was willing to contribute towards the health care of the nation, it made no real attempt to actually treat children, so huge cuts of paychecks still had to go to paying for doctors appointments.
Elderly poverty (1)
*(K) The Pensions Act (1908) aimed to provide payment to all British people over 70 years of age.
*(A) This meant that being too old to work would no longer cause someone to fall into extreme poverty and was very well received by the elderly.
*(A+) Failed to meed the needs of the elderly as the act required proof of age to receive a pension, and at the time many people lacked this sort of documentation, so many were denied their payments.
Elderly poverty (2)
*(K) The Pensions Act (1908) provided 5-25 pence per week to those who qualified.
*(A) Before this, the only options for the elderly were working until they died, relying on charity, or falling into devastating poverty, this added a new, better option.
*(A+) While it was better than nothing, the payments provided were below Rowntrees poverty line, and so many of the elderly remained in varying levels of poverty.
Elderly poverty (E)
Effective to a limited extent, The Pensions Act (1908) was very well received by the elderly, but it excluded anyone who had been in jail the previous 10 years of their life, leaving many of the poorest in society unable to claim a pension until the Act was revised in 1911 to remove this clause.
Sickness poverty (1)
*(K) The National Insurance Act (Part 1) (1911) provided workers with payments for the first 26 weeks of their illness.
*(A) This meant that falling ill wouldn’t lead to no money or extreme poverty immediately, and allowed for recovery without having to continue working.
*(A+) It wasn’t uncommon to be ill for longer than 26 weeks at a time, and after that period they would receive no government support.
Sickness poverty (2)
*(K) The National Insurance Act (Part 1) (1911) worked on a system of paying in 4d a week and receiving 9d a week when ill, advertised as ‘9d for 4d’,
*(A) Provided enough to survive when ill in comparison to the nothing that sick workers would have received beforehand.
*(A+) The payments of 4 a week essentially acted as a wage cut which drove some people even further into poverty.
Sickness poverty (E)
Effective to a limited extent, The National Insurance Act (Part 1) (1911) helped to somewhat prevent poverty after falling ill but it failed to deal with the root causes of these illnesses, were often poor housing or water quality which stemmed from living in poverty.
Unemployment (1)
*(K) The National Insurance Act (Part 2) (1911) gave payment to unemployed people for 15 weeks of unemployment per year.
*(A) This meant that losing a job didn’t immediately cause extreme poverty from a lack of income.
*(A+) For seasonal workers like farmers, 15 weeks was a far too short period and they still went without pay for large portions of the year.
Unemployment (2)
*(K) The Labour Exchanged Act (1909) Set up labour exchanges in most large cities, where unemployed people could go to find information about available jobs.
*(A) This made it much easier to find jobs when unemployed, and lowered the amount of time reliant on government aid, which only lasted a limited amount of time.
*(A+) There was a lot of mistrust around them, with many people believing jobs found at labour exchanges would pay less than the alternatives.
Unemployment (E)
Effectiveness was limited as while the National Insurance Act (part 2) (1911) helped combat the effects of short-term unemployment, and the Labour Exchanged Act (1909) helped limit the amount of time people had to rely on National Insurance, the National Insurance Act (1911) paid less than what Rowntrees poverty line demanded, and often once people had gotten jobs through the labour exchanges, a lack of minimum wage meant that generally pay was so low that it did little to help people out of poverty.
