The rise and rise of neo-liberal social protection
Monday 1st April was not only April Fool’s day; it was also the day chosen by the British government to make the most drastic changes to the UK’s social security system in decades, throwing many poor people into even deeper poverty. People with disabilities were the hardest hit: as has been...
Social Security and the Growth of the Precariat
Guy Standing makes a lot of sense in a recent article he wrote for The Guardian. He argues that successive British governments have created a precariat, a growing sector of the population with minimal job security and inadequate access to social benefits. A growing commitment by government to means-test social security benefits...
Means-testing the UK’s Winter Fuel Allowance: how does this contribute to our understanding of the political economy of social security?
The UK’s Labour Party has recently responded to the Conservative – or in theory, Coalition – government’s attacks on the social security system by trying to prove they can be even tougher. To prove it, they’ve decided to go after one of the UK’s few remaining inclusive benefits and subject...
Dismantling of social protection in UK highlighted by UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty
16th November: A fifth of the population lives in poverty in the UK and this number is projected to increase as a result of the “systematic dismantling of social protection,”...
Poverty-reduction failures of targeting social protection to be highlighted at social studies seminar
Development Pathways’ Senior Social Policy Specialist Stephen Kidd is set to present evidence on the effectiveness of different approaches to targeting in social protection at a seminar in The Hague....
Universal Child Grants momentum builds with international conference set to outline the evidence
A global conference on Universal Child Grants set to be held in Geneva in response to “a growing appetite for universal approaches to direct support,” according to UNICEF and the...
Five things everybody in development should know about disability
A research project looking at social protection for persons with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries has been a very valuable learning experience for me. It was the first time I have done research on disability, and I found that a lot of my thinking – or lack of thinking – on the...
Conditions and sanctions don’t work, and hinder the rights of the most vulnerable
A UK MP found “depressingly unsurprising” the finding that punishing people in their hour of greatest need is ineffective and ethically questionable. Indeed, the results of the five-year study on Welfare Conditionality, presented to Parliament last month, should surprise none of us. The evidence has been mounting for years that a punitive...
Training on the political economy of targeting social security programmes
The politics of social protection do not enjoy as much of the focus of donors and UN agencies as the economics. But an understanding of the distribution of power between...