Latest articles- The ‘nothing for something’ benefits system May 15, 2012 Ben Baumberg
- Should the government promote marriages among the disadvantaged? May 3, 2012 Brendan Saloner
- Immigration and the Moral Claim to Health Benefits April 17, 2012 Brendan Saloner
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The ‘nothing for something’ benefits system
Some phrases just stick. While British politicians often bemoan the ‘something for nothing’ culture in the benefits system, somehow the other side of this has been missed. Yet there are people who contribute to the welfare state for decades, and … Continue reading
Should the government promote marriages among the disadvantaged?
Perhaps the most socially divisive question in post welfare reform America has been whether the federal government should encourage unmarried parents to wed. The Bush administration plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into its Healthy Marriage Initiative, a program that … Continue reading
Immigration and the Moral Claim to Health Benefits
Remember this moment? Barack Obama: “There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” Representative Joe Wilson: … Continue reading
Inequality of the will
(Apologies for the lack of recent posts while I was ill – we’re back to our normal schedule now!) Among the oldest of old political battles, liberals and conservatives have constantly sparred over the causes of poverty – whether it … Continue reading
The harms of hidden research
It’s all about the ‘killer facts’. If you want to get social science into policy, then – as Alex Stevens’ wonderful covert ethnography of high-level policymaking shows – killer facts are the name of the game. And we try hard on … Continue reading
Does College Make You Liberal?
“President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob… There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught … Continue reading
Posted in Articles
Tagged education, political attitudes, politics of inequality, public opinion
2 Comments
The mysterious non-claiming unemployed
Throughout the financial crisis there’s been a puzzle gnawing at me, which seems critically important – yet has been barely mentioned. It’s glaringly obvious when looking at the BBC news reports after every release of the unemployment figures, the latest … Continue reading
The end of the American labour market model?
In a guest post from Declan Gaffney – shortened from a recent post at his blog L’Art Social – he shows that US employment rates are increasingly unimpressive in international context, despite the claims often made in the UK. Comments from … Continue reading
“Never working families” – a misleading sound-bite?
In this guest post, Lindsey Macmillan and Paul Gregg look at the claim that there are generations within families who have never worked. From their position as probably the foremost experts on intergenerational worklessness in the UK, they find the evidence … Continue reading
European Social Policy in Defense of the Welfare State: the British and the Italian Manifesto
Comparative social policy tends to underline policy differences (e.g. in the worlds of welfare literature), but common austerity trends in Europe are leading to similar internal reactions. In Italy and in the UK, social policy academics have produced two documents … Continue reading
