British unemployment insurance expanded sixfold in eight years

Evidence

In 1920 the Unemployment Insurance Act extended the 1911 scheme to cover most industrial workers. It expanded coverage “from 2- 3 million in 1912 to over 12 million” people (Peden 2000, 168). Aft er the summer of 1920, when unemployment in Britain tripled in just a few months, reconstructionists pushed for many proto- Keynesian proposals of loanfi nanced public works to keep people in jobs; in their means and objectives these projects deeply contrasted with prewar budgetary orthodoxy (see chapters 3 and 6). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1661

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the book’s own earlier chapters 3 and 6 on prewar budgetary orthodoxy and proto-Keynesian proposals; also connects to the reader’s broader austerity-as-class-weapon thesis.