Good Times, Bad Times: The Welfare Myth of Them and Us

by John Hills

Overview

Two-thirds of UK government spending now goes on the welfare state and where the money is spent – healthcare, education, pensions, benefits – is the centre of political and public debate. Much of that debate is dominated by the myth that the population divides into those who benefit from the welfare state and those who pay into it – 'skivers' and 'strivers', 'them' and 'us'. This ground-breaking book, written by one of the UK’s leading social policy experts, uses extensive research and survey evidence to challenge that view. It shows that our complex and ever-changing lives mean that all of us rely on the welfare state throughout our lifetimes, not just a small ‘welfare-dependent’ minority. Using everyday life stories and engaging graphics, Hills clearly demonstrates how the facts are far removed from the myths. This revised edition contains fully updated data, discusses key policy changes and a new preface reflecting on the changed context after the 2015 election and Brexit vote.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781447336471
Publisher:	Bristol University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2017
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

John Hills (1954-2020) was Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy and Co-Director of the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics. He wrote extensively on inequality, public policy and the welfare state. He was a member of the Pensions Commission and Chair of the National Equality Panel for the Labour government and led a review of the measurement of fuel poverty for the Coalition government. He was knighted in 2013 for services to the development of social policy.

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction: Them and us; Are the poor too expensive? Redistribution and the welfare state; The long view: Social policies and the life cycle; It’s complicated: High frequency living; Good years, bad years: Reacting to change; The long wave: Wealth and retirement; The longest wave: From generation to generation; A moving backdrop: Economic crisis, cuts, growth and ageing; Conclusion: Britain’s misunderstood welfare state.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"[An] excellent book." Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope

" A powerful corrective to many of the myths of the welfare state" Peter Whiteford, Australian Review of Public Affairs

"This hugely important book shows how populist understandings of the welfare state are wrong. Its message needs to reach the voting public before it is too late" David Blanchflower, Dartmouth College (New Hampshire) and University of Stirling, and formerly of the Monetary Policy Committee, Bank of England

“Masterfully, John Hills has brought together all the important research work of the Welfare State into a compelling, challenging and highly readable account” Rt Hon Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education

"A meticulous compendium of decades of empirical work that seeks to upend the divisive discourse of “the welfare myth of them and us”" Tom Clark, The Guardian

"A lively and provocative book that will overturn your assumptions about the welfare state. A great read, and a 'must read' for policy-makers and the public alike." Jane Waldfogel, Columbia UniversitySchool of Social Work, New York

“Should be compulsory reading not just for politicians and journalists, but for us all" Sheila Gilmore MP, Progress

“An extremely valuable piece of work” Baron Kirkwood of Kirkhope

“Accessible and learned, it is a myth buster.” Howard Glennerster, LSE

“A beautifully researched academic howl of rage against the current myth of 'welfare’. Anyone who wants to understand the state of welfare – and of the welfare state – in the second decade of the 21st century really needs to read this book.” Nicholas Timmins, Institute for Government and King's Fund

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Editorial Reviews

This is an academic book for everyone … every bit as revealing as an episode of The Wire” Danny Dorling, Times Higher Education

“Good Times, Bad Times is required reading for our times” Fran Bennett, People, Place and Policy

"A cracking book...a forensic account of the contemporary UK welfare state." Times Higher Education

"The chancellor could do worse than read the wonderful recent book by John Hills. Entitled Good Times, Bad Times – The Welfare Myth of Them and Us, it explains in vivid detail just how important the welfare state is to the majority of the population over their life cycles." The Observer

"The concluding chapter is a tour-de-force. I cannot recall reading a better account” Adrian Sinfield, Journal of Social Policy

“Hills systematically shatters the myth that the welfare state supports an undeserving underclass. Undergraduates, graduate students, practitioners, and general readers will appreciate this readable, eye-opening book" – Choice

"Rarely have I been gladder to have read a book!" Jon Dean, LSE Review of Books

"An invaluable tool in the ongoing battle to challenge the denigration of welfare and the continuing stigmatisation of the most disadvantaged in society." Critical and Radical Social Work

"If the Labour Party is going to get back to becoming more of a moral crusade and less of an apologia for austerity, reading Good Times, Bad Times would be a very good place to start" Ian Cole, People, Place and Policy

From the Publisher

This hugely important book shows how populist understandings of the welfare state are wrong. Its message needs to reach the voting public before it is too late.

Dartmouth College, formerly of the Monetary Policy Committee, Bank of England - David Blanchflower

Like zombies, ‘must reads’ are everywhere. But Hills’s book offers us a glimpse of a policy debate which has to happen sooner rather than later, and makes a case for the importance of social science analysis purely through its quality. It is vitally important we are armed with facts and examples when we finally must face up to reality, and, frankly, I have rarely been gladder to have read a book. All hail the twenty-first century’s Bruce Campbell.

LSE Review of Books - Jon Dean

I am sure that this book will come to be an invaluable tool in the ongoing battle to challenge the denigration of welfare and the continuing stigmatization of the most disadvantaged in society.

Critical and Radical Social Work

"Hills systematically shatters the myth that the welfare state merely supports an unchanging, undeserving underclass. Instead, social benefits go to the majority of Britons who utilize the welfare state to bridge crises and stabilize income, week to week and year to year. Hills gives life to this process by tracing the lifetime experiences of two fictitious, but statistically typical, extended British families. At any one moment, the welfare state redistributes income, benefiting some at the expense of others. But over time, the welfare state smooths income for nearly all British families, leveling out periods of income earned in the working lifetime with periods when work income is absent, such as in youth and old age. Joblessness and illness undermine the financial stability of many families, especially those with already low incomes. For these low-income families, who face more variable and uncertain flows of money, these income supports are vital. . . . Recommended.

Choice - D. B. Robertson

An academic book for everyone. . . . Hills roundly debunks the myth of shirkers and strivers. He follows the money to get at the truth, and the result is every bit as revealing as an episode of The Wire.

Times Higher Education - Danny Dorling

Hills points out that one of the starkest ways in which inequality manifests itself is through differences in mortality.

Inside Story (Australia) - Andrew Leigh

A terrific book—really well written and intellectually compelling.

Tony Giddens

Hills passionately and rigorously shows how very different families rely on the intergenerational contract we call the welfare state. Accessible and learned, it is a myth buster.

London School of Economics and Political Science - Howard Glennerster

Should be compulsory reading not just for politicians and journalists, but for us all.

Progress - Sheila Gilmore MP

Hills shows that social policy is about stabilizing income over the life course, compensating for the vagaries of markets and life circumstances, enhancing opportunity for disadvantaged children and facilitating asset accumulation. Good Times, Bad Times makes it clear that there is considerable scope for improvement in public social programs. For those wishing to understand one of our most important and politically divisive institutions, this book is required reading.

University of California, San Diego - Lane Kenworthy

Good Times, Bad Times is panoramic in its scope, based on extensive empirical evidence and presented in a lively and engaging manner. . . . Hills illustrates his analysis quite concretely with ‘case studies’ of two generations of fictional families, the Osbornes and the Ackroyds. He looks at how they pay into and benefit from the welfare state, at points in time, throughout their lives. . . . A powerful corrective to many of the myths of the welfare state.

Australian Review of Public Affairs - Peter Whiteford

In this excellent and accessible book Hills sets out to establish what is really going on in the contemporary welfare system in the United Kingdom.

Lancaster University - Christopher May

At one level, Hills’s new book is a meticulous compendium of decades of empirical work that he and his LSE colleagues have undertaken into how the welfare state works. At another level, Good Times, Bad Times is more disruptive. It seeks to upend the divisive discourse that the book’s subtitle calls ‘the welfare myth of them and us.’ . . . Striking is his facility, too rare in today’s specialized academy, to zoom out from all this detail and present the big picture. . . . Hills can hit out with force once he is satisfied on the evidence.

Guardian - Tom Clark

Impressive. Hills deftly navigates a course through a mass of histograms, graphs, and tables to keep to his central theme: the impermeable social divisions that apparently mark differences between the independent ‘us’ from the welfare-dependent ‘them’; skivers versus strivers, takers versus makers, and all that. The reality, Hills shows, is more dynamic and the vast majority of us both contribute to and benefit from the system of social welfare in the course of our lives. It is ‘our’ welfare state.

People, Place and Policy - Ian Cole

Hills’s Good Times, Bad Times: The Welfare Myth of Them and Us traces the ways we contribute to and benefit from the welfare state across our lifetimes, setting to rest the insidious notion that there is any distinction between ‘strivers’ who pay in and ‘skivers’ who benefit. It is carefully evidenced and immensely readable, and I think a copy should be issued to every 16-year-old along with their National Insurance number.

Times Higher Education - Kitty Stewart

[One of the Books of 2015]. . . . A cracking book . . ., it is a forensic account of the contemporary UK welfare state and readable enough to be my dad’s Christmas present.

Times Higher Education - Peter Matthews

This book shows how we all receive welfare services and benefits throughout our lives, rich as well as poor: essential reading for policy makers, politicians, and citizens.

University of Kent - Peter Taylor-Gooby

This book is an extremely important contribution to central debates about the United Kingdom’s welfare state, deploying a wealth of statistical and research evidence in a highly accessible fashion to fundamentally challenge widely held perceptions about who benefits and who pays.

University of Oxford - Brian Nolan

A valuable and thought-provoking study which should provide the basis for much policy analysis and making.

Journal of Social Policy

A lively and provocative book that will overturn your assumptions about the welfare state. A great read, and a ‘must read’ for policy makers and the public alike.

Columbia University School of Social Work - Jane Waldfogel

An interesting book that provides a coherent argument as to why the welfare state is important and why we should seek to protect it.

Disability & Society

This is a beautifully researched academic howl of rage against the current myth of ‘welfare.’ Anyone who wants to understand the state of welfare—and of the welfare state—in the second decade of the twenty-first century really needs to read this book.

Institute for Government and King’s Fund, UK - Nicholas Timmins

“Hills shows that social policy is about stabilizing income over the life course, compensating for the vagaries of markets and life circumstances, enhancing opportunity for disadvantaged children and facilitating asset accumulation. Good Times, Bad Times makes it clear that there is considerable scope for improvement in public social programs. For those wishing to understand one of our most important and politically divisive institutions, this book is required reading.

Lane Kenworthy - University of California