Analysis Of Social Policy By Hartley Dean

In the 1st chapter Dean explains what the Social Policy is “ Social Policy entails the study of the social relations necessary for human wellbeing and the system by which wellbeing may be promoted or, for that matter, impaired. “ ( p.1)
Hartley Dean gives various examples of how social policy is being used in our everyday life for example in health care, education, pensions for the old, benefits for unemployed and disabled. According to Dean social policy is a very broad subject that doesn’t only involve spending of our money and services provided by the government however social spending is a big part of social policy, Government decides how much they are going to spend on social policy depending on their priorities, economy and look at the
Health and education are the bedrock services in any country as these are the basic needs of every human being and because of that social spending puts education and health care as a priority, meaning that most money from social spending goes on those services as everyone will need to use them at some point. Next Dean discusses social security and employment, here Dean mentions that poverty is becoming bigger and everyone depends on employment because of that people want to be assured by the government that in case they are no longer able to provide for themselves they will still be able to maintain their income, no matter if one is unemployed, disabled, or able bodied person, people want to know that everyone will be treated equally. Chapter 5 explores how finances function, there are 3 different ways for the government to rise taxes: from individuals, from consumption or from businesses. A persons income can be taxed in two ways either by income tax or social security contribution where the tax is deducted from a person’s wage. Other taxes that contribute in some way to public finances are also discussed in this chapter. It also talks about how welfare state can either use universal idea where goods are being distributed to every person equally at a minimum level to secure one’s wellbeing whether they need help or not or they can use the selective idea where only those people that really need the help will get it. Operating selectively is a more effective way of helping other people because they get the maximum level of help as not everyone is receiving it, those who do not need any help are not in any way unprivileged, it’s true that they won’t receive the help from the state but on the other hand they wouldn’t have to pay high level of taxes.