Social Policy Digest

1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-270
Author(s):  
Fran Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Advisory Committee ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
Income Support ◽  
Welfare Dependency ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government

A new chief executive of the Benefits Agency, and a new chairperson of the Social Security Advisory Committee, have been appointed. In its response to the Social Security Committee's recent report on social security expenditure, the government revealed that by 1992/3, 30 per cent of individuals were living in households receiving at least one means-tested benefit. In November 1994, there were 5.7 million income support claimants, with just under 1 million partners and 3.2 million other dependants; almost 1.7 million claimants had one or more deductions from their weekly income support (25:1/97, 1.7; 24:3/95, 1.3). In May 1994, more than 3 million people had been claiming income support for more than two years (24:2/94, 1.1). An Institute of Economic Affairs (EEA) report claimed that recent governments' tax and benefit policies have played a central role in increasing welfare dependency.

Social Policy Digest

1995 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-441
Author(s):  
Jo Campling
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Research Unit ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
Income Support ◽  
Government Failure ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government

In November, the Secretary of State for Social Security announced that benefits would be uprated in line with inflation in April 1995. However, since 1979, there has been a widening gap between the incomes of poor and wealthier households (94—24/2—1.1). A report from the Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU) highlights government failure to uprate benefits in line with earnings as contributing to this growing inequality. Figures produced by the Government Statistical Service on the estimated take-up of incomerelated benefits for 1992 claim that more than four out of five of those eligible claim some £9 out of £10 of the available cash. The figures for family credit show a steady increase in take-up from 57 per cent of the caseload in 1988–9 to 66 per cent in 1991–2. Income support figures suggest that the take-up is now between 77 and 87 per cent.

Self-employed surfers, universal credit and the minimally decent life

Legal Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Christopher Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
The Self ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Minimum Income ◽  
Wage Labour ◽  
The Social ◽  
Decent Life ◽  
The Government

Abstract As part of its response to Covid-19 the government paused the use of the ‘Minimum Income Floor’ (MIF), which restricts the Universal Credit (UC) entitlement of the self-employed. This paper places the MIF in the wider context of conditionality in the social security system and considers a judicial review which claimed that the MIF was discriminatory. The paper focuses on how UC affects the availability of real choices for low-income citizens to limit or escape from wage labour, with two implications of the move to UC highlighted. First, the overlooked labour decommodifying aspect of tax credits, which provided a minimum income guarantee and a genuine alternative to wage labour for people who self-designated as ‘self-employed’, even if their earnings were minimal or non-existent, has been removed. Secondly, UC has in some respects improved the position of low-paid wage labourers in ‘mini-jobs’, who are not subject to conditionality once they work for the equivalent of approximately nine hours a week on the minimum wage.

Welfare Commonsense, Poverty Porn and Doxosophy

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Social World ◽  
Welfare Dependency ◽  
Television Content ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Perspectives

This article critically examine how Benefits Street - and the broader genre of poverty porn television - functions to embed new forms of ‘commonsense’ about welfare and worklessness. It argues that such television content and commentary crowds out critical perspectives with what Pierre Bourdieu (1999) called ‘doxa’, making the social world appear self-evident and requiring no interpretation, and creating new forms of neoliberal commonsense around welfare and social security. The article consider how consent for this commonsense is animated through poverty porn television and the apparently ‘spontaneous’ (in fact highly editorialized) media debate it generates: particularly via ‘the skiver’, a figure of social disgust who has re-animated ideas of welfare dependency and deception.

scholarly journals Social Security Contribution Rate and Its Impacts on Labor Demand of Enterprises in Carbon Neutral Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 275 ◽  
pp. 02059
Author(s):  
Haizhu Zhao ◽  
Lianhua Luo
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Labor Demand ◽  
State Council ◽  
Contribution Rate ◽  
Social Security Contribution ◽  
The Social ◽  
Heterogeneity Analysis ◽  
The Government ◽  
Total Labor ◽  
Labor Remuneration

With the government setting stricter standard on carbon emission, enterprises are facing more environmental pressure and cost these years. At the same time, China’s State Council has officially announced a further reducing the social security contribution rate from May 1, 2019, it is worthy of assessing that if the reduction would decompress enterprises and promote labor demand. Our results shows that social security contribution rate does not have significantly impacts on enterprises’ labor demand overall. However, when wage and benefit are controlled, it has a direct impact on labor demand. Basic regression and heterogeneity analysis both confirm it. Wage and benefit play intermediary roles as the results show. Social security contribution rate has negatively impact on wage and benefit, which help to keep the total labor remuneration and then labor demand unchanged. State-owned and private enterprises show similar results. However, laborintensive and non-labor-intensive enterprises show slightly different results.

scholarly journals Polityka społeczna wobec ludzi starych w Polsce — uwarunkowania, rozwój i kierunki zmian

Ekonomia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 73-84
Author(s):  
Sylwia Wojtczak
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Older People ◽  
Senior Citizens ◽  
Population Aging ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Human And Social Capital

Social policy toward old people in Poland — conditions, development and directions of changesSocial policy shapes people’s living conditions. In the era of dynamic demographic changes, especially the aging of the population observed in Poland and across the world, the activity of the state focused on improving the quality of life of the elderly is particularly important. Population aging is a demographic process of increasing the proportion of older people while reducing the proportion of children in the society of a given country. Elderly people will continue to be a part of society, mainly due to the progress of civilization, advances in modern medicine and the popularization of so-called healthy living.Social policy toward the elderly should not be limited to managing the social security system and social welfare. Eff ective use of human and social capital of the elderly will be a growing challenge for this policy, and for senior citizens — spending satisfactorily the last years of one’s life. However, for some senior citizens, old age means or will mean poverty and living on the margins of civil society. The Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Polic y is responsible for the social policy of people in Poland, off ering for example in the years 2014–2020 to senior citizens such programs as “Senior +”, the Government Program for Social Activity of the Elderly ASOS or “Care 75+.” Each of the above programs have appropriate criteria that must be met to be able to use them. Are older people eager to use them, or are the eff ects of these programs already visible? This study will attempt to answer the above questions. The main purpose of the article is to diagnose and analyze selected government programs targeted at older people. In addition, perspectives for changes in social policy toward older people in Poland will be determined.

scholarly journals Welfare State Policy Model as A Poverty Reduction Strategy in the West Sumatra Districts and Cities

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Azwar Azwar Azwar ◽  
Emeraldy Chatra ◽  
Zuldesni Zuldesni
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Model ◽  
The West ◽  
Policy Model ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Welfare State

Poverty is one of the social problems that the government can never completely solve. As a result, other, more significant social issues arise and cause social vulnerability, such as conflict and crime. As a province that is experiencing rapid growth in the last ten years, the West Sumatra find difficulty to overcome the number of poor people in several districts and cities.  The research outcomes are the models and forms of social policy made by West Sumatra regencies and cities governments in improving the welfare of poor communities. It is also covering the constraints or obstacles to the implementation of social policy and the selection of welfare state models for the poor in some districts and municipalities of West Sumatra. This research is conducted qualitatively with a sociological approach that uses social perspective on searching and explaining social facts that happened to needy groups. Based on research conducted that the social policy model adopted by the government in responding to social problems in the districts and cities of West Sumatra reflects the welfare state model given to the poor. There is a strong relationship between the welfare state model and the form of social policy made by the government.

scholarly journals INFORMATIZATION OF SOCIAL PROVIDING AS A MAIN ELEMENT IN THE FORMATION OF DIGITAL ECONOMY

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-106
Author(s):  
Halyna KULYNA ◽  
Nataliya NALUKOVA
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
The State ◽  
Information Space ◽  
Digital Society ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social

Introduction. In the conditions of digital society formation, the informatization of the social security sphere is a necessary component and guarantee of successful implementation of social policy aimed at quality and timely satisfaction of citizens' needs. Therefore, a prerequisite for the effective functioning of social protection and public service authorities is the development and technical innovation of social services and channels for their implementation through automated information systems, should be consistent with the innovation strategy of development of the social sphere as a composite digital economy of the state. Purpose is to substantiate the expediency of application of the newest digital technologies in the sphere of social security and novelization of social services on this basis, as well as to reveal features and advantages of social protection of the population through automated information systems and channels of their implementation. Results. The necessity and role of informatization in the modern digital society and the main challenges that lead to its implementation in the field of social security have been substantiated. The key automated information systems, which contribute to the construction of a common information space of the social sphere and allow to increase social protection of the population in domestic conditions, as well as the emergence of a new service-oriented social service with a wide range of information and communication services, have been analyzed. The necessity of training and retraining of highly qualified creative specialists of new specialties was noted and generalized principles of systems of skills development in the conditions of informatization, which are important in the selection of social workers, were defined. Conclusions. Social protection and social welfare institutions, when formulating their own strategies, should consider the information and communications technology vector of development as an essential means of improving their functioning, since this will determine the effectiveness of social policy implementation in the State and the level of satisfaction of citizens with social services. The results of informatization of social processes are manifested in the implementation of automated information systems and the construction of a single unified information space of social security, the development of new service products, electronic filing of documentation and simplification of procedures for obtaining social security, transparency of social security and, as a result, successful social policy.

FINANCIAL TSUNAMI, ECONOMIC INSECURITY AND SOCIAL PROTECTION: THE CASE OF HONG KONG

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (02) ◽  
pp. 97-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIM MING LEE ◽  
CHING YIN CHENG
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
The United States ◽  
Protection System ◽  
Economic Insecurity ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government

Rising economic inequality becomes an important concern for both advanced and developing countries. Nonetheless, political and business elites around the world never question the neoliberal agenda, despite economic crises happening every now and then. The year 2007 may mark the turning point of neoliberal globalisation. As the global financial tsunami kicked off from the burst of the subprime mortgage bubble in the United States in 2007, the global economy is facing an economic hardship never heard of since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Hong Kong as a highly open economy is also severely hurt by the financial tsunami. In every economic recession, all Hong Kong people suffer, but lower classes suffer most. This raises a serious question about whether the current social protection system adequately protects people against an increasingly risky global economic environment. By examining the social policy package adopted by the HK government in fighting against the financial tsunami, we show the lack of long-term strategies and commitments of the government in protecting HK people against globalisation risks and economic insecurity. By drawing experiences from other countries, we suggest that active labour market policies (ALMPs) may be the social policy tools the government can use to reform the social protection system.

Sweden after Swedish Model

2014 ◽  
pp. 53-64
Author(s):  
I. Grishin
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Social State ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Swedish Society ◽  
General Elections ◽  
The Government

Since the turn of the 1980–90s the Swedish society has undergone fundamental changes. It has altered the vector of the socioeconomic development. The social democrats have lost their position as the dominant party. They changed the course of the governmental policy from social-state to liberal one that was taken over and strengthened by the government of center-right parties after their victory in the 2006 and 2010 general elections. The social democrats have found themselves in the unprecedented since 1917 long opposition. All of this means that, despite keeping predominance of the institutional-redistributive principle of social policy, the former model of societal development has in essence consigned to history.

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