Social Security: A Fair Contribution Towards the Less Fortunate

One of the silliest remarks I heard on Facebook (on the Politics Jersey Group) was as follows:

Social Security is like a charity, I understand that it hands out over £200,000,000 every year to help people... do they ever get any of it back ?.......I thought that there was a saying. "You Help People to Help themselves" ....is there ever a payback time or has all that money gone for good?

So let us look at the principles behind Social Security, and how it acts as a safety net for those who need help.

Perhaps nowhere was this principle better stated than by David Lloyd George in a speech about his “People’s Budget”. This was from his 1909 Limehouse speech, “Why should I put burdens on the people?” It looked at pensions, but the budget also looked at sickness and unemployment benefits. 

And it explains with great clarity why those who are richer should help those who are poorer in this way.

Here's an extract:

“Why should I put burdens on the people?”

by David Lloyd-George

Deception is always a pretty contemptible vice, but to deceive the poor is the meanest of all. But they say, 'When we promised Pensions, we meant Pensions at the expense of people for whom they were provided. We simply meant to bring in a Bill to compel workmen to contribute to their own Pensions'. If that is what they meant why did they not say so?

The Budget...is introduced not merely for the purpose of raising barren taxes, but taxes that are fertile, taxes that will bring forth fruit—the security of the country which is paramount in the minds of all.

The provision for the aged and deserving poor—was it not time something was done? It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours—probably the richest in the world, if not the richest the world has ever seen—should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and possibly starvation. It is rather hard that an old workman should have to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore, through the brambles and thorns of poverty.

We cut a new path for him—an easier one, a pleasanter one, through fields of waving corn. We are raising money to pay for the new road—aye, and to widen it, so that 200,000 paupers shall be able to join in the march. 

There are so many in the country blessed by Providence with great wealth, and if there are amongst them men who grudge out of their riches a fair contribution towards the less fortunate of their fellow-countrymen they are very shabby rich men.

We propose to do more by means of the Budget. We are raising money to provide against the evils and the sufferings that follow from unemployment. We are raising money for the purpose of assisting our great friendly societies to provide for the sick and the widows and orphans. We are providing money to enable us to develop the resources of our own land. 

I do not believe any fair-minded man would challenge the justice and the fairness of the objects which we have in view in raising this money.

We are placing burdens on the broadest shoulders. Why should I put burdens on the people? I am one of the children of the people. I was brought up amongst them. I know their trials; and God forbid that I should add one grain of trouble to the anxieties which they bear with such patience and fortitude.