Editing History of the United Kingdom (section)

===Welfare state===
{{Main|Beveridge Report}}
The success of the government in providing new services, such as hospitals and school lunches, as well as egalitarian spirit, contributed to widespread support for an enlarged welfare state. It was supported by the coalition government and all major parties. Welfare conditions, especially regarding food, improved during the war as the government imposed rationing and subsidized food prices. Conditions for housing, however, worsened with the bombing, and clothing was in short supply.

Equality increased dramatically, as incomes declined sharply for the wealthy and for white collar workers, as their taxes soared, while blue collar workers benefited from rationing and price controls.<ref>{{Cite book |author-link=Sidney Pollard |first=Sidney |last=Pollard |title=The Development of the British Economy 1914–1950 |date=1962 |pages=339–348}}</ref>

People demanded an expansion of the welfare state as a reward to the people for their wartime sacrifices.<ref>{{Cite book |first=F. M. |last=Leventhal |title=Twentieth-Century Britain: an Encyclopedia |date=1995 |pages=74–75, 830}}</ref> The goal was operationalized in a famous report by [[William Beveridge]]. It recommended that the various income maintenance services that had grown-up piecemeal since 1911 be systematized and made universal. Unemployment benefits and sickness benefits were to be universal. There would be new benefits for maternity. The old-age pension system would be revised and expanded, and require that a person retired. A full-scale National Health Service would provide free medical care for everyone. All the major parties endorsed the principles and they were largely put into effect when peace returned.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Brian |last=Abel-Smith |author-link=Brian Abel-Smith |title=The Beveridge report: Its origins and outcomes |journal=International Social Security Review |date=1992 |volume=45 |issue=1–2 |pages=5–16 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-246X.1992.tb00900.x}}</ref>