Post by RPankn on Aug 4, 2005 3:22:46 GMT -5
Poverty rates
The welfare states of continental Europe and social democratic Sweden seem better at tackling poverty than either the UK or the USA.
Britain created one of the earliest and most comprehensive welfare states when Labour adopted the Beveridge report in 1945.
But is was never well-funded enough to eliminate poverty.
Social welfare spending
The effectiveness of welfare states in combatting poverty is closely related to how its citizens are prepared to spend.
Sweden, where total state spending makes up 60% of the economy, also spends twice as much on social welfare as the United States.
Britain falls between the low-spending USA and the high-spending continental European countries.
Old age pensions
The biggest single item of welfare spending is old age pensions.
People retiring in the UK can expect to receive a far lower proportion of the income they received when working than in most other rich countries.
Currently, more UK pensioners than in the rest of Europe also have company pensions, but this may change in the future.
Health care
The United States stands out as the only industrial country which only provides limited government health care benefits -mainly to the elderly.
Other people must buy private health insurance through their employer.
Britain's NHS provides a universal service, although not the best-funded one, with particularly generous prescription drug coverage.
Unemployment
The most dramatic differences in welfare provision occur in regard to unemployment.
Liberal welfare states like the USA and the UK provide a sharp cut-off in benefits to discourage dependency and force people back to work.
Germany and France provide generous benefits, and some argue this leads to high unemployment and inflexible labour markets.
[They forget to mention that administrations since Reagan have tinkered with how unemployment is defined so that it's not even an accurate indicator of how many people are unemployed or underemployed.]
news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/business_comparing_welfare_states/html/1.stm
