Introduction

The social security settlement of the 1940s, implemented in 1948, appeared to have the prevention of want as its central focus, inasmuch as its inspiration came from the Beveridge Report (1942). In addressing the issues about freedom from want, this chapter could try to deal with the extent to which poverty was effectively prevented then and now. At the end of this chapter some observations will be included on that, but the achievement of a satisfactory comparison would be very difficult. Moreover, I write as a student of policies rather than as a student of poverty. Beveridge's rhetorical use of the term ‘want’, though largely synonymous with poverty, has perhaps a slightly looser connotation. Taking my cue from that, I will provide a policy analysis that, influenced by writers like Deborah Stone (1988) and Frank Fischer (2006), gives attention to the discourses that have framed policy making and its leading critiques.

What I will do here will be to consider: what were the characteristics of the 1948 settlement as an approach to the prevention of want; what was problematical about that approach (with the benefit of hindsight); what remain the implications of those problems for social security today and how might we consider (and evaluate) modern approaches to their solution (particularly those encapsulated in very recent government initiatives).

The 1948 settlement as a response to ‘want’

It is appropriate to start from the way in which the Beveridge Report links its rhetoric on the topic of ‘want’ with its social security proposals. It states:

That statement would seem to suggest that the task of preventing want would have been fulfilled by the two pieces of legislation already on the statute book by 1948: the 1944 Family Allowances Act and the 1946 National Insurance Act.