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Existing national insurance schemes cost £432,000,000 annually and are financed: £265,000,000 from the Treasury and specified local taxes; £69,000,000 from insured persons; £83,000,000 from employers, and £15,000,000 from interest. In addition to these payments, Britons are already paying some £160,000,000 a year (not including annuities) to private insurance companies.
For the premiums proposed, an average British family of four would get the following benefits:
>$11.20 a week unemployment insurance for an indefinite period (instead of the present $7.60 for 26 weeks).
>$11.20 a week for nonindustrial disability for an indefinite period (instead of $3.60 for 26 weeks).
>$11.20 a week for 13 weeks for industrial disability, two-thirds pay for an indefinite period—up to $15.20 (instead of half pay up to $7 a week plus $1.60 for two children).
>$8 a week for old-age pension (instead of $4).
>$40 marriage benefit for working women (instead of nothing).
>$24 to $80 for funeral expenses (instead of nothing).
Its Advantages. The entire project is based on three important assumptions which Sir William considered beyond the scope of his report. Those are: 1) that unemployment will never rise above 10%; 2) that there will be fullest international cooperation in post-war trade; 3) that 1945 prices (the year the plan would go into effect) will be no more than 25% above the 1938 price level. Failure of any of these assumptions would necessarily cause the collapse of the proposed subsistence level and, therefore, of the plan.
Sir William, said his supporters, had drawn his plan for the future, not for the present or past. For the British Treasury the cost, particularly in the early years, would not be unbearable. (Said the Times: "The magnitude is not of such order as to intimidate any Chancellor of the Exchequer who has faith in the future of Britain.") Sir William himself argued that his plan could be operated far more economically than are present insurance companies, since many items of overhead would be eliminated. Specifically, said he, he was certain that under his compulsory plan funeral benefits (largest single item of British insurance) could be administered for 6d (6¢) on the pound as compared with present costs of 75 6d ($1.50) under private insurance companies or societies.*