Lindsay Mitchell: Is there a relationship between marriage rates and welfare dependence?

With new data available from the 2023 census, it is possible to answer questions that contemporary policy makers seem disinterested in.

Earlier I posed the question, Who relies most heavily on welfare?

The following graph replicates ethnic benefit data and adds marriage data. Is there a relationship between marriage rates and welfare dependence? It would appear so.

Michael Bassett: Dealing with the underclass

The Bible tells us in several places that the poor will always be with us. It’s doubtful whether Jesus or any of the others who used that phrase ever imagined the numbers would be on today’s scale. Poorhouses, workhouses and charitable aid existed from early times. And then along came the welfare state with Dick Seddon then Mickey Savage pledging to guarantee better lives for the poor. What was on offer was a hand-up, not a hand-out. Walter Nash, Labour’s Finance minister to Savage and Peter Fraser made it clear that work was required from everyone if they were to improve their lives. Unemployment benefits weren’t designed to be permanent income for anyone except for the severely handicapped. There were to be no free lunches. As late as 1966 there were only 133 people in the whole of the country receiving an Unemployment Benefit, and 5,000 on Sickness Benefits.