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The Conservative governments’ record on social security: policies, spending and outcomes, May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020

Author

Listed:
  • Cooper, Kerris
  • Hills, John

Abstract

This paper uses the Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes framework to evaluate how social security policies evolved, how public spending changed, the effects of these on the generosity of the system, and evidence of key outcomes in the areas that social security is intended to address, as well as evidence related to one of the main structural reforms to social security in the last decade – the rollout of Universal Credit. The main focus is on the period of the Conservative governments from 2015 until 2019, but this is set in the context of their legacies from the preceding Labour and Coalition governments and is concluded by looking at the challenges the system already faced in the 2020s before the Coronavirus crisis. Within ‘social security’ the paper covers spending on cash benefits run by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and tax credits that have been run by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), including payments for those above as well as below pension age. The analysis tells the story of why the social security system in place on the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 took the form that it did, and of how well-placed it was to cope with what turned out to be the greatest shock to British living standards since the Second World War.

Suggested Citation

  • Cooper, Kerris & Hills, John, 2021. "The Conservative governments’ record on social security: policies, spending and outcomes, May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121553, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:121553
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/121553/
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Obolenskaya, Polina & Hills, John, 2019. "Flat-lining or seething beneath the surface: two decades of changing economic inequality in the UK," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100287, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. De Agostini, Paula & Hills, John & Sutherland, Holly, 2018. "Were we really all in it together? The distributional effects of the 2010-2015 UK Coalition government's tax-benefit policy changes," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 82895, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Polina Obolenskaya & John Hills, 2019. "Flat-lining or seething beneath the surface? Two decades of changing economic inequality in the UK," CASE - Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Papers 04, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    4. Kitty Stewart & Nick Roberts, 2019. "Child Poverty Measurement in the UK: Assessing Support for the Downgrading of Income-Based Poverty Measures," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(2), pages 523-542, April.
    5. repec:cep:spccrr:spdorp03 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Kitty Stewart & Kerris Cooper & Isabel Shutes, 2019. "What does Brexit mean for social policy in the UK? An exploration of the potential consequences of the 2016 referendum for public services, inequalities and social rights," CASE - Social Policies and Distributional Outcomes Research Papers 03, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    7. Cribb, Jonathan & Emmerson, Carl, 2019. "Can't wait to get my pension: the effect of raising the female early retirement age on income, poverty and deprivation," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 450-472, July.
    8. Summers, Kate & Young, David, 2020. "Universal simplicity? The alleged simplicity of Universal Credit from administrative and claimant perspectives," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 105032, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Obolenskaya, Polina & Hills, John, 2019. "Flat-lining or seething beneath the surface?: two decades of changing economic inequality in the UK," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101128, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Polina Obolenskaya & John Hills, 2019. "Flat-lining or seething beneath the surface? Two decades of changing economic inequality in the UK," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 35(3), pages 467-489.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    social security; poverty; inequality; universal credit; pensions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General

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