TY - JOUR

T1 - The Household Benefit Cap

T2 - understanding the restriction of benefit income in Britain

AU - Grover, Chris

N1 - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-social-policy The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Journal of Social Policy, 51, (1), pp 2-19 2022, © 2020 Cambridge University Press.

PY - 2022/1/31

Y1 - 2022/1/31

N2 - Britain’s Household Benefit Cap restricts the amount of benefit income unemployed households can receive. In this article, it is examined using material held at the UK’s National Archives recording debates about a proposal to introduce a similar policy – a benefit limit – in the first Thatcher Conservative government elected in 1979. It was rejected, but the Household Benefit Cap was introduced three decades later. The article locates debates about, and the practice of restricting benefit income, in perennial social security concerns with the financial incentive to do waged work. The article argues that while there are material differences that help explain the different policy outcomes in 1980 and 2010, they can primarily be explained by changing ideas about the roles of social security policy, including the development of the ‘incentive paradigm’ concerned with manipulating behaviour; a loss of concern with the hardship that would come with the introduction of a benefit restriction and a view that institutions other than the state are better placed to address poverty and buttress work incentives.

AB - Britain’s Household Benefit Cap restricts the amount of benefit income unemployed households can receive. In this article, it is examined using material held at the UK’s National Archives recording debates about a proposal to introduce a similar policy – a benefit limit – in the first Thatcher Conservative government elected in 1979. It was rejected, but the Household Benefit Cap was introduced three decades later. The article locates debates about, and the practice of restricting benefit income, in perennial social security concerns with the financial incentive to do waged work. The article argues that while there are material differences that help explain the different policy outcomes in 1980 and 2010, they can primarily be explained by changing ideas about the roles of social security policy, including the development of the ‘incentive paradigm’ concerned with manipulating behaviour; a loss of concern with the hardship that would come with the introduction of a benefit restriction and a view that institutions other than the state are better placed to address poverty and buttress work incentives.

U2 - 10.1017/S0047279420000550

DO - 10.1017/S0047279420000550

M3 - Journal article

VL - 51

SP - 2

EP - 19

JO - Journal of Social Policy

JF - Journal of Social Policy

SN - 0047-2794

IS - 1

ER -