This case study analyses government policies to provide information about social security benefits that are designed to supplement low wages, either for those already in work or that act as an incentive for the unemployed to take up employment. Having briefly described historical attempts to help those on low wages, this chapter explores chronologically the ‘modern’ benefits: Family Income Supplement (FIS), Family Credit (FC), and Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC). The link is also made to statistical evidence of rates of take-up (where figures are available) as a way of measuring the ‘success’ of the information policies themselves.

In-work benefits were chosen as a case study for several reasons. They were first introduced as part of the modern social security system in 1971, with different objectives to existing benefits. They have always been part of a wider agenda of social and economic policies, and the importance of their ‘success’ – that is, high levels of take-up by those entitled to claim – goes beyond the social security scheme itself. They reflect government values and moral agendas. Public and ‘official’ attitudes towards unemployed people in particular have been ambiguous and sometimes discriminatory, their ‘citizenship’ status being reflected in social security policy. In addition, effective information is particularly important for these means-tested payments that are based on complex qualifying conditions and complex calculations.

Wages and welfare

The problems of low wage earners were first recognised and acted upon at the end of the 18th century when, in 1795, magistrates at Speenhamland in Berkshire introduced a system of wage ‘top-ups’ to poor labourers. Until then, the Elizabethan Poor Law had assumed that people in work did not need assistance. This ‘relief ‘ was a response to rapid price inflation, with wages falling behind prices, and steep increases in the cost of living. To bring a man's earnings up to a minimum level on which he and his family could exist, amounts of ‘relief ‘ were linked to family size and to the price of bread. This practice spread nationwide and was enacted in an enabling amendment to the Poor Law on 24 December 1795 (de Schweinitz, 1961). The Speenhamland allowances were abolished in 1834 on the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws.