Beveridge and the causes of ‘Want’

In his famous 1942 Report, Social insurance and allied services, Sir William Beveridge set out his plans for social security after the end of the War:

The evidence he used was drawn from a number of pre-war surveys in particular towns, especially the work of Seebohm Rowntree in his surveys of York in both 1936 and one hundred years ago in 1899.

The key conclusion Beveridge drew from these surveys was that the principal causes of ‘Want’ could be divided between ‘interruption or loss of earning power’ – accounting for three quarters to five sixths of the total – and the effects of large family size – accounting for ‘practically the whole’ of the rest (Beveridge, 1942).

In Rowntree’s 1899 survey more than half of the ‘primary poverty’ was due to low wages. Only 18% was due to unemployment or death of the main wage earner. By contrast, in 1936, unemployment, old age and other causes which could be met by social insurance accounted for five sixths of the total, and large families for another 8%. Low wages only accounted for a tenth of the total (figures from Evans and Glennerster, 1993, Figure 1).

These observations led directly to Beveridge’s recommendations: a comprehensive system of unemployment benefits, old age pensions, widows’ benefits, and disability benefits, all based on insurance rights earned during the good parts of people’s working lives. But his prescription was not only about cash benefits. Straying way beyond the brief which had been set for his committee, he argued that his plan for social security was based on three ‘assumptions’, themselves major foundations of post-war social and economic policies:

• • children’s allowances (today’s Child Benefit), to cope with the problems of large families;

• • comprehensive health and rehabilitation services (which became the NHS);

• • commitment to avoidance of mass unemployment. (Beveridge, 1942, para 14).