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2 Defiance and Disobedience: Local Government, The Unemployed and Whitehall
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Published:September 2013
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Abstract
This chapter examines the complex relationship between the unemployed, local government officials, elected councillors and Whitehall. It focuses on the introduction of a household means test, by the newly formed National Government, as a requirement for benefit for all long-term unemployed men and women. The Public Assistance Committees were left to administer the test which was fashioned on the old poor law examination. Investigating the financial circumstances of the respectable working-class, who had little previous contact with the PAC, was highly controversial and was potentially political suicide. Attempts to generously administer the test, from Labour Party councillors in particular, led to extreme variations in allowances and interventions from the Ministry of Labour including replacing local authority administrations. The debates over the means test are revealing of governmental and popular attitudes towards the unemployed and working-class families, and the framing of social policy. The importance of the notion of respectability in working-class communities and the shift in attitudes towards receiving state benefits is considered.
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