Historical Rates of Social Security benefits
This note sets out the historical rates for the major social security benefits since the introduction of the modern welfare state in 1948.
In the early years of the welfare state, the uprating of benefits was done on an intermittent, almost ad hoc basis, with benefits going for several years without being uprated. Annual uprating commenced in the 1970s, and moved from a November uprating to April in the mid-1980s.
General historical practice has been for the level of benefits to keep pace with inflation – generally using a single month’s inflation figure from the previous year as a benchmark. Prior to 2010, benefits tended to be uprated in April, in line with inflation from the previous September. Since 2010, this policy has been diverged from, with the state pension benefiting from a guarantee (the so-called “triple-lock”) that it will rise in line with the highest of 3 separate measures; while other benefits have been frozen or received limited uprating. From April 2014 the majority of working age benefits will rise by 1% per year, in line with the provisions of the Welfare Benefits Uprating Act 2013