section_path: History
section_name: History
paragraph_text: History
  
  In the Roman Empire, the first emperor Augustus provided the Cura Annonae or grain dole for citizens who could not afford to buy food every month. Social welfare was enlarged by the Emperor Trajan. Trajan's program brought acclaim from many, including Pliny the Younger. Other provisions for the poor were introduced during the history of Ancient Rome, such as the Alimenta.
  
  The Song dynasty government (960 CE) supported multiple programs which could be classified as social welfare, including the state hospitals, low-interest loans for peasants, state orphanages, free pharmacies for the poor, filled state granaries, fire stations and libraries in the large cities, retirement homes, public clinics, and paupers' graveyards. According to economist Robert Henry Nelson, "the medieval Roman Catholic Church operated a far-reaching and comprehensive welfare system for the poor...". Ancient Greek city-states provided free medical services for the poor and slaves. From the 14th century onward, the governments of the Italian city-states began to partner with the church to provide welfare and education to the lower classes. In the 18th Century, according to one study, the Qing Dynasty had “the most elaborate relief system in world history, based on state and local granaries that were used in times of shortage to stabilize food prices and provide relief to the urban and rural poor.” This system, however, was weakened after imperialism entered China following the 1840 Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1860), which resulted in a crisis in the Qing Dynasty. Following the foundation of the Republic in 1912 and the following years of civil wars and warlordism, “the state granary system became almost non-existent.”
  
  Throughout the history of the Byzantine Empire, various social welfare services and institutions were established. Provision was also made for the State to provide food and clothing for children that parents were unable to bring up due to indigence.
  
  In later Protestant European nations such as the Dutch Republic, welfare was managed by local guilds until the abolition of the guild system in the early 19th century. In the free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire, the city governments in cities like Nuremberg could take control of the collection and distribution of public welfare.
  
  The seventh century caliph Umar implemented a form of zakat, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, as a codified universal social security tax. Traditionally estimated at 2.5% of an individual's assets, government zakat funds were distributed to various groups of Muslims, including impoverished people and those in severe debt. The collection of zakat increased during the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, though the zakat system was frequently inefficient and corrupt; Islamic jurists often instructed Muslims to distribute money to the needy directly instead to maximize its impact.
  
  Likewise, in Jewish tradition, charity (represented by tzedakah) is a matter of religious obligation rather than benevolence. Contemporary charity is regarded as a continuation of the Biblical Maaser Ani, or poor- tithe, as well as Biblical practices, such as permitting the poor to glean the corners of a field and harvest during the Shmita (Sabbatical year).
  
  There is relatively little statistical data on transfer payments before the High Middle Ages. In the medieval period and until the Industrial Revolution, the function of welfare payments in Europe was achieved through private giving or charity, through numerous confraternities and activities of different religious orders. Early welfare programs in Europe included the English Poor Law of 1601, which gave parishes the responsibility for providing welfare payments to the poor. This system was substantially modified by the 19th-century Poor Law Amendment Act, which introduced the system of workhouses.
  
  It was predominantly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that an organized system of state welfare provision was introduced in many countries. Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, introduced one of the first welfare systems for the working classes. In Great Britain the Liberal government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman and David Lloyd George introduced the National Insurance system in 1911, a system later expanded by Clement Attlee.
  
  Modern welfare states include Germany, France, the Netherlands, as well as the Nordic countries, such as Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland which employ a system known as the Nordic model. Esping-Andersen classified the most developed welfare state systems into three categories; Social Democratic, Conservative, and Liberal.
  
  A report published by the ILO in 2014 estimated only 27% of the world population has access to comprehensive social security. The World Bank 's 2019 World Development Report argues that the traditional payroll-based model of many kinds of social insurance are "increasingly challenged by working arrangements outside standard employment contracts".