Talk:Welfare state in the United Kingdom

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The article says "most people get free medical prescriptions and treatment", but surely everybody gets free hospital treatment? Wouldnt it be more accurate to say something like "people pay a small fixed prescription charge which is free for those with low incomes. Hospital treatment is free regardless of income." Thanks. Fred (UK citizen and NHS user).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.107.224.13 (talk) 18:43, 15 November 2004 (UTC)

If nobody objects in the next few days I will change the article as above. Thanks. Fred.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.107.224.14 (talk) 12:38, 16 November 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Jonpatterns (talk) 10:33, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

In the first line it states; "which identified five "Giant Elvis" in society" Is giant "elvis" a typing error, or is that genuinely what it said on the report? --92.19.110.189 (talk) 12:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering if it might make sense to change the name of the article to something like Welfare State of the United Kingdom to help make it clear that this is what the article deals with, also I suspect that many people looking for information on the welfare state in the UK would use a similar search term. 150.237.85.229 (talk) 21:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Morning all. I can't help but feel this article is kinda poor quality, and needs a little brushing up. Sincerely, The Queen—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.98.91.167 (talk) 10:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I am worried that the pie chart representing welfare expenditure has the potential to be misleading, and could therefore benefit from editing. This is particularly important due to the sensitive political nature of the topic concerned. The pie chart is found under the sub-heading 'Expenditure' and is titled: 'UK Government Welfare Expenditure 2011-12'. The issue with it is that, contrary to many other pie charts (including others on this page), it represents total spending as one of the sections on the pie chart itself; also the colour used to identify this section on the key to the right is very similar to the colour used to illustrate the pie chart section on 'employment and support allowance'. My concern is therefore that it is very easy to inaccurately read the graph as showing that employment and support allowance makes up half of government welfare spending, when in fact it is a much smaller proportion. I suggest that it would be clearer to remove the section of the pie graph showing total expenditure and instead show this information by writing it underneath the other entries in the key as: 'Total expenditure = £160.2 bn'. If someone could enact this edit I would be very grateful as I do not know how to. Thank you. --Matpb (talk) 13:05, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I have replaced the chart with a Pie Chart template. Unfortunately it only permits 10 segments, so I also amended "Others" in the table, so not to be confused with "Other" in the Pie Chart. Ajcoxuk (talk) 10:48, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't like the first sentence. The Welfare State is not just about public expenditure. It's an idea as well. And why don't health and pensions count as part of the money spent on the Welfare State?Rathfelder (talk) 18:39, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I presume pensions are under social protection. Given how large they are and I feel of a different kind from social insurance type uses, it would be nice to see this broken out. If you're restricted to 10 segments, perhaps transport could be included with IAE? Mgrazebrook (talk) 11:57, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Possible changes in benefits

The article may need to be updated after the 8th July 2015. See Budget 2015: Any new material in George Osborne's encore? and David Cameron speech: I'll end welfare merry-go-round. Eating Nicely (talk) 07:14, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Budget 2015: what welfare changes did George Osborne announce, and what do they mean? Eating Nicely (talk) 23:22, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Budget 2015: Squeeze to hit 13m families, says IFS Eating Nicely (talk) 20:00, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

Historical statistics section

This section obviously needs a cleanup, but I think it should be moved to a new article - there is just so much data in there and its not particularly easy to read or relevant for the main article. Obviously a few charts would be helpful to see a couple of historical trends but currently there is far too much raw data Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 14:03, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 18 June 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Although the numerical majority is in favour of the move, as [[User:Necrothesp|]] points out, the WP:CONSISTENCY argument that buttresses these comments is actually based on a false premise; they point out other articles at different titles – two I found from doing a cursory category search include Social protection in France and Social security in the Republic of Ireland, and there's probably more. From what I can tell, we've basically been okay with going with the common name in each country over a consistent (Americanised) treatment. (closed by non-admin page mover) Sceptre (talk) 14:32, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

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Welfare state in the United Kingdom → Welfare in the United Kingdom – Welfare in the United Kingdom redirects here. For all other countries, we have articles on welfare in Fooland, not welfare state in Fooland (this is the only article on Wikipedia named "welfare state in Fooland". Sidenote: I'll also propose upmerging (deleting) Category:Welfare state in the United Kingdom, which is again the only Wikipedia category named as such - we have Welfare in Fooland category tree, but not Welfare state in Fooland. Sidenote 2: editors who comment here may also be interested in the discussion I just started at Talk:Welfare#Social_security_articles? about merging subarticles on welfare and social security in Foolands (note that social security was merged to welfare a while back.And no, just in case anyone is confused, I am not proposing to merge the welfare state article at present, just mentioning some related discussions commenters here may or may not want to review. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:22, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support per nomination and per WP:CONSISTENT as confirmed by entries under Category:Welfare by country. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 06:13, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Support per nominator. Killuminator (talk) 18:04, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Support per nom. estar8806 (talk) ★ 21:00, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. The nomination is based on an entirely false premise. This is not a consistency issue at all. Category:Welfare by country shows only the category name (and it's Category:Welfare in the United Kingdom, just like the others). However, most of those categories do not have a "Welfare in Foo" article in them. The articles on the general welfare system in each country, if one exists at all, are under a variety of names. There is no consistency. I respectfully suggest that the editors who have commented above have just taken the nominator's word for it and not actually delved into the categories to find this out themselves. In general, we do not refer to "welfare" in the United Kingdom. I think most of us Brits would see that as an American term. We say "benefits" or "the welfare state". "Welfare" is most certainly not the WP:COMMONNAME in this country. On Wikipedia, we do not force names that are not used in order to maintain consistency between countries. This has been established over and over again. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:49, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Categories should not really be criteria. Articles for individual country pages use different names. Generally speaking, using the term "welfare" as short-hand for the public benefits system is largely an Americanism. I'd prefer to defer in this article to British usage, and "welfare state" does seem to prevail there as common name, e.g. guide, LSE Walrasiad (talk) 21:51, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Return of the "Nasty Party"?

Claimants Braced for More Bad News

"Internal government warnings of a rebound this month mean officials fear the annual increase in the state pension, which is linked to inflation, could cost the exchequer billions more than hoped. It also risks eating further into the chancellor’s fiscal headroom before a budget this autumn. The predicted dip in spending power has forced ministers to begin searching for steeper cuts elsewhere". Harry Yorke, Aug 13 2023, The Sunday Times

Instead of increasing the top rate of taxation for the people that can most afford it, this Government plan steep cuts to the incomes of people on benefits. Then again. if the Govt does return to reusing such spiteful/Thatcher-like policies - how much longer before people start reusing the term "The Nasty Party"?

It's not called the 'welfare state'

It's not called the 'welfare state'. That's a made-up slur designed to denigrate socialism Delete article or change the name of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.188.177.247 (talk) 13:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)