The Double Crisis of the Welfare State and What We Can Do About It

This book analyses the immediate challenges from headlong cuts, root-and-branch restructuring and the longer-term pressures from population ageing. It demonstrates that a more humane and generous welfare state that will build social inclusiveness is possible and shows how it can be achieved. The NHS, education, social care, local government, employment services, social housing and benefits for the poor face major challenges from a government determined to entrench a radical and divisive liberalism permanently in British public life. This book analyses the immediate challenges from headlong cuts that bear most heavily on women, families and the poor, and from a root-and-branch restructuring which will fragment and privatize the bulk of public services. It sets this in the context of escalating inequalities and the longer-term pressures from population ageing. It demonstrates that a more humane and generous welfare state that will build inclusiveness is possible by combining policies that limit child poverty, promote more equal outcomes from health care and education, introduce a greater contributory element into social benefits, invest in better child and elder care and address low wages and workplace rights. It analyses the political forces that can be marshalled to support these shifts and shows that, with political leadership, the welfare state can attract mass support Front Matter....Pages i-xiv The Double Crisis of the Welfare State....Pages 1-25 Why Add Restructuring to Cutbacks? Explaining the New Policy Direction....Pages 26-46 Addressing the Double Crisis: The Welfare State Trilemma....Pages 47-73 Responding to the Trilemma: Affordable Policies to Make Popular Mass Services More Inclusive....Pages 74-97 Making Generous and Inclusive Policies Politically Feasible....Pages 98-118 Back Matter....Pages 119-138