The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.
Mr. Knox
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the ratio of the social wage to privately-fiananced consumption has been in each year since 1951.
Mr. Joel Barnett
Estimates on the definition of the social wage given to the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Thomas) on 25th March are available only for recent years. However, the table below gives estimates on a broadly similar definition for 1953–1973. Comparable estimates are not available for 1951 and 1952, nor, yet, for 1974.
| The social wage* as a proportion of privately financed consumption† | |||||
| per cent. | |||||
| 1953 | … | … | … | … | 35 |
| 1954 | … | … | … | … | 34 |
| 1955 | … | … | … | … | 33 |
| 1956 | … | … | … | … | 34 |
| 1957 | … | … | … | … | 34 |
| 1958 | … | … | … | … | 35 |
| 1959 | … | … | … | … | 36 |
| 1960 | … | … | … | … | 36 |
| 1961 | … | … | … | … | 38 |
| 1962 | … | … | … | … | 39 |
| 1963 | … | … | … | … | 40 |
| 1964 | … | … | … | … | 42 |
| 1965 | … | … | … | … | 45 |
| 1966 | … | … | … | … | 46 |
| 1967 | … | … | … | … | 51 |
| 1968 | … | … | … | … | 53 |
| 1969 | … | … | … | … | 53 |
| 1970 | … | … | … | … | 55 |
| 1971 | … | … | … | … | 55 |
| 1972 | … | … | … | … | 57 |
| 1973 | … | … | … | … | 59 |
| * The social wage is estimated as the sum of public expenditure on social services, housing and environmental services, libraries, museums and arts, police, prisons, Parliament and Law Courts, and fire service, as shown in the National Income Blue Books (Table 51 of the 1974 issue). | |||||
| † At factor cost: as defined in Public Expenditure White Paper, Cmnd. 5879, page 168. | |||||