A means-tested past and a means-tested future?

We have got to where we are now by evolutionary change rather than by radical reform, and by the swing of a pendulum, moving back and forth between universality and selectivity, between providing for everybody and providing for people who fit into particular categories. The pendulum has rarely reached either of the extreme ends of the spectrum. It has more often been near to the selectivity end, but has taken an occasional lunge towards universality, only to be dragged swiftly back again.

The 1601 Poor Law set up local administrations to provide for people unable to provide for themselves, and to provide ‘houses of correction’ for able-bodied men who could not find work. By the end of the eighteenth century, unemployment was increasing and wages were not keeping up with living costs. The administration of the Poor Law being local, experiment was inevitable, and in 1795 at Speenhamland the Poor Law Guardians began to subsidise low wages as a means of relieving poverty. Amid (somewhat unjustified) fears that this policy would lead to a general reduction in wages, and a belief that a man who cannot provide for his family loses his dignity, a review was held. The ensuing debate led to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which enshrined the idea of ‘less eligibility’: that is, that the unemployed man or woman should not be paid as much as they would get if they were employed. Before 1834, ‘out relief ‘ had provided food for families that could not afford to feed themselves. After 1834, those who could not support themselves were admitted to the workhouse and isolated from the rest of society: a system meant to deter people from voluntary poverty.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the poverty in which many elderly people found themselves was causing concern, and the government implemented a flat-rate non-contributory pension for elderly people who had not received Poor Relief and whose incomes were below £31 per annum. Central government administered the pension, and since then there has been a constant movement away from the local management of benefits payments and towards centralised administration.