Principles and Environment Flashcards
What is the Beveridge Plan 1942?
The state would provide some essential welfare benefits, such as, the state pension
What are the pay-as-you-go state benefits?
NI contributions (and other taxes) from employed people pay for others’ benefits
Are the pay-as-you-go state benefits means tested? If so, how?
Yes, it depends on claimant’s income/wealth and have to be ‘claimed’
What are some of the welfare problems post WW2 in 1940s?
State-run collectivist regime, provision of essential welfare benefits, pay-as-you-go state benefits
What are some demographic changes?
Life expectancy, ageing population, ‘pension time bomb’
What was the life expectancy of males in 1901 compared to 2011?
1901: 45 years compared to 2011: 79 years
What was the life expectancy of females in 1901 compared to 2011?
1901: 49 years compared to 2011: 82 years
What problems has arose with an ageing population?
There are less working and more retired
How many UK workers are there per pensioner?
3.9 (1976) down to 3.2 (2016)
What does a pension time bomb mean?
We’ll have people living longer, so we need to pay pensions for a longer time. There will be less working people to pay for the pension of the retired
What are some solutions for the demographic time bomb?
Offer less generous retirement benefits, increase retirement and pensionable age, make current generation pay more taxes, cut back on govt spending
Why has there been a trend towards individual responsibility?
Since the 1970s, driven parly by ideology (Thatcher tory govt), partly by necessity (demographic trends), continued by Blair ‘New Labour’ govt, and then the ‘Age of Austerity’
What must we do to have any hope of financial security in our retirement?
We have to start taking responsibility for our own financial welfare
What are the problems in making individuals responsible?
The lack of basic skills and mis-selling
What are some of the basic skills that the UK population cannot do?
Work out percentages and use Yellow pages