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The Strange Case of British Earnings-Related Unemployment Benefit*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

John Micklewright
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Abstract

The abolition in 1982 of the Earnings-Related Supplement (ERS) to unemployment benefit, which had been introduced in 1966, left the UK with no element of income support for the unemployed linked to previous earnings. The ERS scheme represents an important case study of economic and social policy but it has been little researched hitherto. The paper examines the history of ERS, showing how the original legislation and subsequent development produced a benefit that bore little relation to schemes in other countries. Unpublished administrative data on the receipt of ERS are used to help document the scheme's failings, and the paper closes by placing ERS within the context of the development of unemployment insurance in Britain.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 1989 , pp. 527 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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