Essay Sample on Social Security in Welfare Provision

Introduction

Welfare is known as a social effort or procedure created to enhance, the primary material and physical well being of citizens who are in need. Welfare was a structure generated to offer aid to these individuals who could not sustain their needs effectively. Today's welfare state development in the United Kingdom is overly well-thought-out to offer educational services, social work, health provision, social housing provision, and benefits payment or social security (Kagan 2017). These are all referred to as the 'big five' services of welfare provision, although they happen to be evolving and differ in quality, availability, and quantity. Social security, in particular, is the protection provided by the government for its citizens through some public measures against the social and economic distress would otherwise result from the substantial reduction or loss of income caused by death, maternity leave, sickness, or work-related injury (Spicker 2019). Social security intrinsically aims at preventing or alleviating poverty, redistribution as well as compensation of income. This role could be achieved through non-systematic social security like voluntary organizations (trade unions, credit unions, friendly societies, and charity), and the family. Social security is thus a provision that plays an important role in many peoples lives particularly those with little income. This essay hence seeks to discuss social security as a welfare provision in the UK by explaining the core values of the 'Social Democratic' line to welfare provision and comparing it with the main objectives of the New Right approach.

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State welfare provision has a long background in Britain, for example looking back at the Elizabethan Poor Laws. States welfare began developing when research of poverty by individuals like Charles Booth presented the welfare provision inadequacies which were not able to manage poverty especially with the rise in industrialisation and urbanisation (Spicker 2019). The universal depression from the early 1900s influenced nations into considering improved necessary welfare provisions. By the late 1900s, the welfare state was turning out to be more expensive in an era that saw the British economy profits failing rapidly (Rector 2015). By this time, the number of people receiving housing education, health care, and social services, rose swiftly, giving the public sector an unusual growth pattern than all other areas in the government. The Conservative Party's New Right started to question if the country would afford this continuously rising bill, while others began to ask why the welfare expenditure was on the rise even as the citizen's wellbeing was improving.

Britain has successfully made the shift from their failed social security systems to healthier structures basing on the citizen's retirement accounts. This approach could aid in propping up the social security framework since individuals would not be solely depending on government payoffs. The New Right is the dominating philosophy in the United Kingdom. It is an evolution of the old right, known as Adam Smith's political economy (Ezrati 2019). The Social Security Act of 1986 mirrors the Government's New Right approach. It reflected on the perspective which encouraged the enactment of the Poor Law Act of 1834, that poverty is mainly as a result of idleness and ignorance among the underprivileged hence it is more of a moral issue than an economic problem (Spicker 2019). The New right's initiative was to free the UK from the tax load of social democrats' policies.

New Right approach argues that government interference results in a lack of action, unemployment, and very high wages. Most of its supporters contended that the capitalist economic framework is able and could guarantee the provision of happiness and social security to every citizen, the market would ensure the presence of an equilibrium between values of goods and services, and wages so that the payments would manage the demand and supply of the economic model. This approach also argues that the government is mistaken if it interferes in the market through artificial restraints, welfare measures, and taxation n in business activities. These perspectives pushed the conservative regimes to increase family and individual self-help to reduce reliance on the government promote the market through privatisation, weaken restrictive practices and unions, reduce the taxation levels, and cut down on the expenditure and size of the state sector (Misra 2014).

Nevertheless, these approaches had consequences on state control. The outcomes of forcing a free market are more repressive measures and authorisation, a rise in centralised intervention, and a stronger state. In Britain, the public expenditure continues to be on the rise regardless of government attempts to curbing it. Nevertheless, even though the rates of social spending continue growing, they have not been enough in meeting the needs of the evolving population system, and rising social deprivations and needs (Caplinger 2016).

In contrast to the New Right perspectives, is the Social Democratic approach. The Social Democratic perspective was initiated in the 1940s - during the age of Karl Marx who improved the ideologies of international revolutionary socialism and communism, - based on universalist principles of the labour party (Adam 2016). They hold that poverty comes from the inequalities generated by the labour market in capitalist societies. Due to capitalism, believers of social democracy claim that there is a free market economy with high unemployment rates and low wages, and hence, the need for a welfare state. Social democrats contend that the welfare state ought to have a 'tactic of equality' by reallocating wealth from the affluent to the underprivileged cutting down on social relegation through liberal tax systems (Rector 2015). A socially constitutional authority emphasises on universalistic modified social security with the state's dominant role. Social democrats argue that welfare benefits need to be allocated to everyone - universal benefits - irrespective of means.

Consequently, there will be wealth redistribution to eliminate social inequality and marginalisation - forming social stability. Since social security is a universal privilege for all individuals in the nation, it is hence seen as a 'universal' basic advantage. As noted by Kagan (2017), receiving public benefit or service becomes a statement of solidarity and equal worth as well as an identity of citizenship. This approach's central values are to deliver social solidarity through free education, free health care, and pensions to generate a more cohesive society by diminishing the social gap between the poor and the rich (Rector 2015).

Capitalism, as practised by the New Right, might have led to negative impacts in the society in which inequality is among the significant weaknesses and to reduce it increasing gap, the Social Democratic argue otherwise in favour of the government's need to intervene. The New Right does not suggest the abolishment of the welfare state; instead it claims that it needs to act on the 'residual model.' This model depends on the capacity of social security agencies to recognize individuals who need help, by using the means of testing. For instance, individuals who need aid should create small groups at a low level of society, so that the benefits should be minimized and target them only (Kagan 2017). On the same note, the disadvantage of the Social Democracy approach is that it seems to be focusing more on the symptoms of the social problems instead of its causes. For poverty to be addressed from the perspective of its roots, it needs to be linked to the structures which lead to its production; that is career patterns and income.

Conclusion

In summary, social welfare is the provision of service and goods for the improvement of individuals wellbeing. The UK social welfare state incorporates social security since under certain conditions, and for the underprivileged, there is the provision of health care, financial aid, and scholarships for college advancements. Hence, social welfare states are there to provide social security to the people. The New Right and Social Democratic are the two major and divided approaches to welfare provision. According to the New Right approach, the more nation takes an initiative of relieving a social problem, the higher the capacity of the issue becomes, with the increasing number of individuals depending on state delivery scheme. In consideration of this approach, the welfare state essentially generates a prevalent reliance, which is meant to eliminate.

The New Right perspective hence believes the government ought to interfere less in social life. While on the other hand, the social democratic approach holds that the government has to intervene in the market to restrain the powerful and greedy, provide prospects for the less fortunate, redistribute income, and compensate victims. The outcome, as they argue, is to have an improved social justice system. The social democrats worked for the improvement of equality in terms of opportunity and wealth distribution by inspecting against immoderations in disparity. They established that the rising levels of oppression and poverty were as a result of lacking social representation in forums of economic policymaking. Irrespective of the diverse approaches in social security structures, it is possible to recognize the core values by which these social securities are formed in the UK. In conclusion, it is thus clear that even though there are different approaches to the provision of social security, they all focus at reducing or bringing an end to poverty, fostering social cohesion, redistribution of income, social compensation, and improving the people's wellbeing.

References

"https://www.britannica.com/editor/Adam-Augustyn/6394" Adam, A. et al., 2016. Social democracy. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-democracy [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

Caplinger, D. 2016. Will Social Security Really Run Out of Money? -- The Motley Fool. [online] The Motley Fool. Available at: https://www.fool.com/retirement/general/2016/03/21/will-social-security-really-run-out-of-money.aspx [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

Ezrati, M. 2019. Master Thinker: Adam Smith shaped how we think about markets and society. [online] Available at: https://www.city-journal.org/adam-smith [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

Kagan, J. 2017. Social Welfare System . [online] Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-welfare-system.asp [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

Misra, R. K. 2014. Welfare State in Britain: Welfare Capitalism. [online] Available at: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/welfare-state-in-britain-welfare-capitalism/40302 [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

Rector, R., 2015. Poverty and the social welfare state in the United States and other nations. Welfare and Welfare Spending. Washington, DC, USA: The Heritage Foundation. Available at: https://www.heritage.org/welfare/report/poverty-and-the-social-welfare-state-the-united-states-and-other-nations

Spicker, P. 2019. Social Policy in the United Kingdom. [online] Spicker.uk. Available at: http://www.spicker.uk/social-policy/uk.htm [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].