American families pinched by the recession that began in 2007 made cuts in their budgets on purchases ranging from cars to television to new homes. Less visible, but no less important, many families changed their food purchasing habits. Research by … Continue reading
Some people just aren’t bothered by welfare cuts. If the cuts don’t affect you personally, and you only discuss them in terms of abstract principles and ‘dependency culture’, then the cuts are distant; the stuff of politicians’ rhetoric and newspaper … Continue reading
A few weeks ago I asked ‘has the work ethic declined because of generous welfare states?’, looking at trends in the work ethic over time. In this (slightly delayed!) conclusion to the piece, I go on to compare the work … Continue reading
In health and social policy we often focus on problems that are bad and getting worse (think obesity or autism among children). Some problems are bad but getting better, and we can learn quite a lot from studying those problems … Continue reading
In a guest post, Craig Berrydraws attention to the increasing weakness of young people’s voters compared to older people’s votes – both because of the ageing population, and because young people in Britain are much, much less likely to vote. … Continue reading
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
Generals are always fighting the last war is a standard political cliché, meaning that politicians have a tendency to overgeneralize from previous experience. Democrats who lost the 1993 health care reform fight vowed not to repeat the same apparent mistakes … Continue reading
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
‘The welfare state makes people lazy.’ Thus runs one of the oldest and most consistent critiques of the welfare state, echoing through the principle of ‘less eligibility’ in the Victorian Poor Law in Britain, right up until the present day. … Continue reading
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