Cash Transfers: The Origin Story in 19th Century England

Describes the origins of the concept of cash transfers to assist people with poverty in 19th century England.

1. Cash Transfers: The Origin Story Andrew Crawford

2. The Black Death (1346-1353) D ecimated Western Eurasia K illed 45% of the English population Shortage of laborers pushed up wages and frustrated landowners

3. Strategies to Limit Wages Prevent migration across England to seek higher wages Those trying to leave their district placed in stocks Undocumented deported Prison for anyone who gave anything to able bodied beggars What would the poor do?

4. English Reformation Prior to English Reformation, Catholic monasteries provided shelter and food. King Henry VIII confiscated the property of the Roman Catholic church in England between 1536 and 1540 V acuum left by the eradication of such charitable institutions left only Parliament to regulate issues of poverty

5. Poor Law (1601) Each of 15,000 parishes collected and managed the rates paid by occupants and dispersed the money to the poor Overseer of the Poor who were responsible for administering the day to- day operations of the poor laws Often members of the church, farmers or landowners in the area T echnically a church body but in modern day terms more comparable to a local government office The poor or rate payers could take disputes to arbitration

6. British Agricultural Revolution (1650 – 1770) P roductivity boost triggered by agricultural innovation led to enormous growth in GDP per capita T remendous impacts upon the nature of the labour market. Prior to 1600 approximately 60% of English labour was used in the agricultural sector which then decreased dramatically Also less common land due to enclosure Unemployment and begging more prevalent

7. French Revolution I ncreasing of poor relief in England accepted by British property owners due to the revolutionary ideas coming from France E xtended stretch of economic prosperity in England fueled by the 20 years of military campaigns

8. Corn Laws and Swing Riots (1815-1830) F lood of cheap imported grain after the end of the Napoleonic Wars T o maintain high grain prices the Tory government passed the 1815 ‘Corn Laws’ that established tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food or grain The associated rise in food prices and the cost of living triggering a wave of social unrest Later the Swing Riots in 1830 erupted demanding more employment and benefits

9. Whig Takeover (1831) Amongst revolutionary threat ruling Tory Party, supported by traditional landowners and farmers, was under siege by the Whig Party, backed by the rising industrialists. Following decreasing support, the Tory Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington (who defeated Napoléon at the Battle of Waterloo), resigned in 1831 and the Whig Party under Earl Grey took government Soon after the election Whig economic advisor Nassau Senior wrote to his friend Lord Howick, the Prime Minister’s son, calling for the necessity of poor law reform to allay the crisis of the Swing Riots

10. Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws (1834) Aim to reform the existing English Poor Law system following the increased cost of payments. Assistant commissioners sent out to collect dat a on poverty by visiting parishes and by having persons respond to questionnaires Replies to the questionnaire were received for 10% of the 15,000 parishes which encompassed 20% of the total population. The 5,000 pages of responses were used to justify many recommendations by the Royal Commission Argued high levels of cash payments to the poor led to a reliance on such payments, less motivation to work and lower worker productivity and workhouses should be made instead Senior: D estroyed the character of the labourer such that they now had the security but with nothing forcing them to work.

11. Report Criticisms Much of the report was written before the evidence was collected Evidence collected by assistant commissioners was impressionistic and tinged with moralism Degree of local variation and complexity of problems was much greater than the commission realized Evidence was selected in terms of their preconceptions about the nature of the problems

12. Reforms after Report Two p rinciple s: ‘less eligibility’ and the ‘workhouse test’. Less eligibility meant that the state of the able bodied pauper receiving any public relief should be less desirable than that of the lowest paid independent labourer . The workhouse test was the test of whether the pauper was really destitute. If the pauper would voluntarily enter the harsh conditions of the workhouse, rather than finding a job, then clearly, they ha d passed the “workhouse test” and were worthy of assistance Based on ‘Utilitarian’ pleasure/pain dynamics

13. Takeways Cash transfers began as tool of labour market and political stabilisation during crisis Technology and geo-politics often leads to labour market disruption Cash transfers as placating the poor but also keeping them healthy to fight Seem to have worked historically until they became too expensive What will impending AI revolution and possible unemployment do to cash transfer systems?

14. POLITICS AND CASH TRANSFERS (Hickey and seekings , 2020) ​ World Bank (US) ILO (UN) DFID (UK) POVNET (OECD) GIVEDIRECTLY (NGO) Ideology Neo-liberal ​ Social democratic ​ Poverty as government responsibility Rights-based Utilitarian Framing Safety net Social Protection Floor Poverty reduction Basic income Maximise impact Target Losers of Capitalism Workers Poor Everyone Those where impact is greatest 14

15. References Blaug , M. (1964). The Poor Law Report Reexamined. The Journal of Economic History , 24 (2), 229–245. JSTOR. Boyer, G. R., & Hatton, T. J. (2002). NEW ESTIMATES OF BRITISH UNEMPLOYMENT, 1870–1913. The Journal of Economic History , 62 (3), 643–675. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050702001031 Dunkley, P. (1979). Paternalism, the Magistracy and Poor Relief in England, 1795–1834. International Review of Social History , 24 (3), 371–397. Nutt, T. (2010). Illegitimacy, paternal financial responsibility, and the 1834 Poor Law Commission Report: The myth of the old poor law and the making of the new. The Economic History Review , 63 (2), 335–361. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00450.x Stokes, P. M. (2001). Bentham, Dickens, and the Uses of the Workhouse. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 , 41 (4), 711–727. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/1556203 The 1832 Royal Commission of Inquiry into the operation of the Poor Laws . ( n.d. ). Retrieved November 9, 2019, from http://www.victorianweb.org/history/poorlaw/royalcom.html