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21 May 2002
THE CHANGING WELFARE STATE: EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL NOVEMBER 2001
Opportunity for all is at the heart of our economic and our social policies. Work is the best way to lift families out of poverty, to raise incomes, and to open doors. That is why we have adopted a work first approach in our welfare reforms, as part of our drive to end poverty. For people who cannot work, our priority is to provide greater security than in the past.
In 1997, we inherited a major problem of worklessness - not just among those traditionally seen as unemployed, but for millions of other people who were offered little or no help at all to find work. Between the 1970s and the mid-1990s, the number of lone parents on benefit and the number of people claiming sickness and disability benefits both trebled. By the mid-1990s, a third of men aged between 50 and state retirement age were out of work: most did not retire voluntarily. That is the scale of the challenge we face.
This paper sets out the background to the problem and how it has developed over the past 20 years. It also shows how, in the past, people were often written off to a lifetime on benefits - when earlier intervention and help could have enabled many more people to return to work. And it was not just a lack of help to get into work. For too long, the welfare system had let down lone parents, disabled people and older workers who had been made redundant. At best, the system failed to encourage and support people to move into work, and at worst it provided clear disincentives to work.
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