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Welfare, care and the mutual tier, read across five countries. Essays on Mondays, briefings on Wednesdays, the week in five desks on Fridays.
Briefing · Money follows the person 1Who decides? How money for care reaches people in six countriesGovernments pay for care in three ways: a service sent by the state, a budget the person directs, or cash. Six countries show how far each has spread, what the evidence says, and who really decides. The first in a series on individual funding.11 November 2026Desk:
30 pieces shown
- 13 NovEvery FridayThe week in five desks: 9 November 2026Queensland builds housing with support on site, England's waits shorten as the list grows, the US proposes narrowing food aid, France's Senate rewrites its social security budget, Korea ties its pension to residence, and New Zealand's healthy homes cut child hospital admissions.
- 9 NovFive Giants · Essay 3 of 5Why the welfare state is straining everywhere at onceFrom Tokyo to Washington, welfare systems built for a younger world face the same three pressures: more old age, a care risk nobody pooled, and a quiet shift of risk onto households. The third Five Giants essay asks why the strain looks the same in such different places.
- 6 NovEvery FridayThe week in five desks: 2 November 2026NDIS reviews added $5.6bn to plans and cut $2.1bn, Britain's Budget leaves the poorest fifth better off, US marketplace sign-up opens without the extra subsidies, Germany's care bill reaches the Bundestag, and China sets the price of joining late.
- 4 NovLeader · AustraliaApproved, and still waitingIn 2025–26, 6,436 Australians died after being approved for care at home and before the funding arrived. October's figures show three gates between approval and a carer at the door: an algorithm that cannot be overridden, a budget, and a shortage of people to deliver the care.AU
- 2 NovFive Giants · Essay 2 of 5Before the state: how people insured each other, and why it stoppedIn 1887 an Auckland carpenter fell ill, and for eleven years his lodge paid him; then the members voted to stop. Before any government insured anyone, working people ran their own welfare systems. The second Five Giants essay asks how they worked, and what ended them in six countries.
- 30 OctEvery FridayThe week in five desks: 26 October 2026Australia's Ombudsman questions the algorithm behind home-care budgets, Britain's Budget leaves disability benefits for 2027, Michigan shows how a work requirement is checked, France rejects its social security budget, and China's residents' fund spends 87% of its income.
- 28 OctBriefing · United KingdomA care service with no members: what Britain is actually proposingBritain has promised free personal care at home from the next parliament, paid for by trimming the state pension from 2030, with one commission to say how. Read closely, the plan builds the benefit and the tax and leaves out the tier that every other contributory country built first.UK
- 26 OctLeader · United KingdomThe forecast is the policyPersonal Independence Payment is barely 2 per cent of what Britain's government spends, yet it is the line Wednesday's Budget will be judged against: forecast to rise from £25.9 billion to £44.7 billion by 2030–31, for reasons nobody has yet established.UK
- 4 OctFive Giants · Essay 1 of 5Who holds the risk? Six ways the state came to carry it, and the tier it left behindEvery welfare state began as a takeover of something that already existed. This first essay in a series on the Five Giants reads six systems by one question: what did the state nationalise, what did it build on, and what did it leave to the family and the means test?
- Oct 2025Five Giants · AustraliaBuilding a Friendly Society for Turbulent TimesAU
- Sept 2024News · AustraliaABC News: The rising cost of specialist careAU
- Sept 2024Five Giants · AustraliaUnderstanding Recent Changes to Australian Policy and their Impact on the Cost of CareAU
- Sept 2024Five GiantsWhat if we all had individual funding?
- May 2024StoryThe Legacy of Community-Minded Movements in Australia: A History of Solidarity and Mutual Aid
- Apr 2024LetterWe wrote to the NSW Minister for Disability Inclusion
- Mar 2024Five GiantsReimagining Care and Redefining Sustainability
- Mar 2024Five GiantsDefining our constraints with budget and competition policy.
- Feb 2024Building YourCareSlow, small and staying independent in 2024.
- Nov 2023How toGP fees likely to increase from today.
- Oct 2023StoryAustralians Pay Some of the Highest Out of Pocket Expenses in the world!!
- Sept 2023StoryDid you listen to Radio National on cost of living and healthcare?
- Sept 2023Five Giants · AustraliaHow to Slay the Five GiantsAU
- Aug 2023Five GiantsWho are the Five Giants?
- Aug 2023Building YourCareIntroducing the Five Giants.
- July 2023How toHow to avoid overcharging in the NDIS
- Mar 2023Building YourCareI care about the cost of care because I’m a father of two young boys
- Feb 2023Building YourCareWhy I started YourCare
- Jan 2023How toHow to reduce Out of Pocket Expenses
- Dec 2022Building YourCareInspired by Friendly Societies & Mutual Aid
- Nov 2022LetterWe wrote to the Prime Minister!