Welfare as we know it is doomed to defeat. It looks like going down to defeat from three major challenges, and each challenge comes from the sea change that is now so marked in public opinion. First, welfare has moved from one based on the duty to contribute before the right to help was conceded. Increasingly benefits are provided only after a test of income. Voters do not approve of this significant change.
The next challenge comes from an increasing reluctance by voters to pay an ever growing share of their income in taxes, of which the largest part goes to a form of welfare with which they strongly disagree – means-tested welfare.
The third fundamental change is generational. Whilst there is much goodwill about safeguarding the income of pensioners, younger voters are steel-like in their resistance to helping further the unemployed who currently gain help without earning their entitlement by having made contributions.
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