Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:09:59.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Strange Case of British Earnings-Related Unemployment Benefit*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

John Micklewright
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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 Unpublished administrative data on the receipt of ERS are used to help document the scheme's failings, and the paper closes by placing ERS within the context of the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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abel-Smith, B. (1963), ‘Beveridge II: another viewpoint’. New Society, 28 February, 1963.Google Scholar
Atkinson, A.B. (1981), ‘Unemployment benefits and incentives’, in Creedy, J. (ed.), The Economics of Unemployment in Britain, Butterworth, London.Google Scholar
Atkinson, A.B. and Micklewright, J. (1985), Unemployment Benefit and Unemployment Duration, STICERD Occasional Paper No. 6, LSE.Google Scholar
Atkinson, A.B. and Micklewright, J. (1989), ‘Turning the screw: benefits for the unemployed 1979–88’, in Dilnot, A. and Walker, I. (eds), The Economics of Social Security, Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Atkinson, A.B. and Stiglitz, J.E. (1980), Lectures on Public Economics, McGraw-Hill, London.Google Scholar
Bakke, E.W. (1935), Insurance or Dole, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Banting, K.G. (1979), Poverty, Politics and Policy: Britain in the 1960s, Macmillan, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beveridge, W.H. (1930), Unemployment: A Problem of Industry, Longmans, London.Google Scholar
Cmd 6404 (1942), Social Insurance and Allied Services, (Beveridge Report), HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cmnd 2764 (1965), The National Plan, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cmnd 3883 (1969), National Superannuation and Social Insurance: Proposals for Earnings Related Social Security, HMSO. London.Google Scholar
Cmnd 4124 (1969), Social Insurance: Proposals for Earnings Related Short-Term and Invalidity Benefits, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Creedy, J. and Disney, R. (1981), ‘Eligibility for unemployment benefits in Great Britain’, Oxford Economic Papers, 33, 256–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deacon, A. (1981), ‘The duration of unemployment benefit under the National Insurance Act 1946’, in Burghes, L. and Lister, R. (eds), Unemployment: Who Pays the Price?, Poverty Pamphlet No. 53, Child Poverty Action Group, London.Google Scholar
Disney, R. (1982), ‘Theorising the welfare state: the case of unemployment insurance in Britain’, Journal of Social Policy, 11: 1, 33–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foley, D.K. (1978), ‘State expenditure from a Marxist perspective’, Journal of Public Economics, 9: 2, 221–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hey, J.D. and Mavromaras, K.G. (1981), ‘The effect of unemployment insurance on the riskiness of occupational choice’, Journal of Public Economics, 16, 317–341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maki, D.R. and Spindler, Z.A. (1975), ‘The effect of unemployment compensation on the rate of unemployment in Great Britain’, Oxford Economic Papers, 27: 3, 440–454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mavromaras, K.G. (1987), ‘Unemployment benefits and unemployment rates revisited: a general equilibrium job search model’, Journal of Public Economics, 32, 101–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Micklewright, J. (1985), ‘On earnings-related unemployment benefits and their relation to earnings’, Economic Journal, 95, 03 133–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narendranathan, W., Nickell, S.J. and Stern, J. (1985), ‘Unemployment benefits revisited’, Economic Journal, 95, 06 307–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NEDC (1963), Conditions Favourable to Faster Economic Growth, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Nickell, S.J. (1979), ‘The effect of unemployment and related benefits on the duration of unemployment’, Economic Journal, 89, 03 34–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogus, A.I. and Barendt, E.M. (1978), The Law of Social Security, Butterworth, London.Google Scholar
Room, G. (1979), The Sociology of Welfare, Martin Robertson, Oxford.Google Scholar
Smee, C.H. and Stern, J. (1978), ‘The unemployed in a period of high unemployment’, Government Economic Service Working Paper No. 11.Google Scholar
Stern, J. (1982), ‘Job durations of men becoming unemployed’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 20: 3, 373–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Topel, R. and Welch, F. (1980), ‘Unemployment insurance: survey and extensions’, Economica, 47, 08 351–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townsend, P. (1972), ‘Politics and the statistics of poverty’, Political Quarterly, 43: 1, 103–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, D. (1982), ‘Men registering as unemployed in 1978—a longitudinal study’, DHSS Cohort Study Working Paper No. 1.Google Scholar