One thing I Never understood about the labour government is why they introduced benefits for working people at all. Tax credits were the start of it.
What on earth?
This is mince. There were benefits for working people long before tax credits, and under the then Tory government.
I know. I received some of them.
Both Income Support and Housing Benefit were available to working people. I believe Unemployment Benefit might have been too, but I didn't have enough NI contributions then.
There were rules about how many hours could be worked, earnings had to be declared to the JobCentre and benefits were adjusted accordingly.
People receiving such benefits might be in low paid jobs, not able to work many hours, or have unreliable unemployment. A woman at the next counter to me in the JobCentre, one time, was a supply teacher reporting her hours and earnings that month.
Employers certainly did not feel obliged to pay anyone a living wage. It was all "The market will decide." Where there was high unemployment and an employers' market, many paid whatever they could get away with – and were proud of doing so. Greed is good, etc.
Almost the first thing the 1997 Labour government did was introduce the Minimum Wage – against stiff opposition by many Tories. This was a huge and essential step to reducing workers' dependence on government top-ups.
(Since then, housing costs have shot up and wages haven't come close to keeping up. Much of the benefit bill now goes into private landlords' pockets.)
And those benefits are before we even mention Family Allowance (as Child Benefit was called).
I see more than one poster has come out with this false claim that working people didn't get benefits before 1997. Where did this story come from?