This volume is made up of articles and broadcasts and deals with the conditions and methods of making the British war effort more effective. It then goes on to deal with post war problems and discusses the Beveridge Report in its perspective of social policy designed to make "New Britain" after the war.

This new edition of Harris's biography of William Beveridge draws upon extensive new archive material about his private and public career. It expands the account given in the first edition of the origins and reception of the Beveridge Plan, and shows how the tortuous character of Beveridge's personal and emotional history helped to shape his contribution to twentieth-century social reform.

75 years after the Beveridge Report: The shocking extent of hardship in the UK Right now in the UK, 13 million people live in poverty; one in five children subsist below the poverty line. Figures such as these suggest devastating repercussions for health, education and life expectancy. The new poor, however, is an even larger group than these official statistics suggest, and its conditions are something new to our era. More often than not, these people are the working poor, living precariously and betrayed by austerity. In The New Poverty, Stephen Armstrong tells the stories of the most vulnerable in British society. He explores an unreported country, abandoned by politicians and stranded as the welfare state has shrunk. Furthermore, as benefit cuts continue into 2018 and beyond, Armstrong asks what will be the long-term impact of Brexit and—on the anniversary of the Beveridge Report—what we can do to keep the giants of indigence at bay.

Beveridge defined full employment as a state where there are slightly more vacant jobs than there are available workers, or not more than 3% of the total workforce. This book discusses how this goal might be achieved, beginning with the thesis that because individual employers are not capable of creating full employment, it must be the responsibility of the state. Beveridge claimed that the upward pressure on wages, due to the increased bargaining strength of labour, would be eased by rising productivity, and kept in check by a system of wage arbitration. The cooperation of workers would be secured by the common interest in the ideal of full employment. Alternative measures for achieving full employment included Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, direct control of manpower, and state control of the means of production. The impetus behind Beveridge's thinking was social justice and the creation of an ideal new society after the war. The book was written in the context of an economy which would have to transfer from wartime direction to peace time. It was then updated in 1960, following a decade where the average unemployment rate in Britain was in fact nearly 1.5%.

A TIMES POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR A LONGMAN/HISTORY TODAY BOOK OF THE YEAR The award-winning history of the British Welfare State – now fully revised and updated for the 21st Century. ‘A masterpiece’ Sunday Times