unemployed

• • In 1911 the Liberal government introduced The National Insurance Act (Part 2) which meant some workers received unemployment benefit when they lost their jobs, helping them to stay out of poverty.
• • As part of the scheme workers paid 2.5d per week, employers paid 2d per week, state paid 3d per week. After one week of unemployment, an insured worker would receive 7 shillings a week, for 15 weeks.
  • For many trades the scheme was compulsory, including shipbuilding, mechanical engineering, construction, iron founding and sawmilling.
• • Unemployment pay meant that people who lost their jobs did not face immediate poverty or even homelessness.
• UNEMPLOYED ANALYSIS - AGAINST

  • Most of the jobs covered by the insurance scheme were only for skilled men and only in certain trades. Women generally did not benefit from the scheme. Workers fired for bad conduct, received no benefit. This meant that many workers in Britain received no benefit from the National Insurance Act.
• ANALYSIS (FOR)

  • By 1914 around 2 million workers in Britain were benefiting from the scheme.
• EVALUATION

  The needs of the workers were met more than those of the young because workers were covered by both health and unemployment insurance. This helped give them an income during two difficult times in their life, however, children would still be subject to poverty if their families experienced unemployment or illness as there was no financial benefit that extended to them specifically. Instead, most of the benefits they gained from the reforms relied on their parents sending them to school, paying for medical treatment and looking after them properly which didn’t always happen.