To what extent do you agree with the view that ‘the Old Poor Law made poverty worse’
To what extent do you agree with the view that ‘the Old Poor Law made poverty worse’
The Poor Law was the way that the poor were supported in 1815. Each parish had to take care of its own poor and provide money to cover the basic costs of living for those who couldn’t. However, the cost of the Poor Law was increasing every year and many criticisms were found raising ideas of whether the poor law was helpful or not.
A major and obvious problem with the poor law was that the population was rapidly increasing. Depending on the size of a family, they were given more money to help support each member of that family although the money per person had actually decreased if calculated. Even though this was so, having more money meant more food on the table source 2, written by Mark Blaug, shows that “many of the criticisms of the Old Poor Law are based on assumption”. One of the assumptions was that people were having more children in order to get more money. Although there was no proof for the poor law being the reason, many still believed that this was the only way the population could be growing so rapidly and because there were more people, the poor population was growing and therefore required more money. This meant that rate payers had to pay more money and although more money was being put in, the amount given to each individual went down in order to be shared out hence why the view that the Old Poor Law was making poverty worse came about. A defence of this criticism would be that the Old Poor Law did promote population growth but via the death rate rather than the birth rate. Because people were given money to survive, more people were staying alive and healthy rather than dying of starvation or a lack of nutrients thus proving that the Old Poor Law also worked well to certain extent.
Another criticism of the poor law pointed out by Reverend Thomas Malthus was that the poor had to “live from hand to mouth”. Line 6 of source 1 explains this stating that
The Poor Law was the way that the poor were supported in 1815. Each parish had to take care of its own poor and provide money to cover the basic costs of living for those who couldn’t. However, the cost of the Poor Law was increasing every year and many criticisms were found raising ideas of whether the poor law was helpful or not.
A major and obvious problem with the poor law was that the population was rapidly increasing. Depending on the size of a family, they were given more money to help support each member of that family although the money per person had actually decreased if calculated. Even though this was so, having more money meant more food on the table source 2, written by Mark Blaug, shows that “many of the criticisms of the Old Poor Law are based on assumption”. One of the assumptions was that people were having more children in order to get more money. Although there was no proof for the poor law being the reason, many still believed that this was the only way the population could be growing so rapidly and because there were more people, the poor population was growing and therefore required more money. This meant that rate payers had to pay more money and although more money was being put in, the amount given to each individual went down in order to be shared out hence why the view that the Old Poor Law was making poverty worse came about. A defence of this criticism would be that the Old Poor Law did promote population growth but via the death rate rather than the birth rate. Because people were given money to survive, more people were staying alive and healthy rather than dying of starvation or a lack of nutrients thus proving that the Old Poor Law also worked well to certain extent.
Another criticism of the poor law pointed out by Reverend Thomas Malthus was that the poor had to “live from hand to mouth”. Line 6 of source 1 explains this stating that