Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
Poverty among working class households in interwar London is reexamined using records from the New Survey of London Life and Labour, 1929-31. Alternative poverty lines are constructed to estimate the number of households in poverty including, and excluding, the social security benefits paid during the interwar period. The interwar social security system is found to deserve greater credit for alleviating poverty than is often recognized. Also, it is argued that the post-Beveridge social security system, if applied in the interwar period, would have further reduced poverty but would not have eliminated it. Copyright 1998 by Royal Economic Society.