Thursday 16 August 2012

Three ways to defend social security in Britain

an article by Ben Baumberg (affiliation(s) not provided) published in Journal of Poverty and Social Justice Volume 20 Number 2 (June 2012)

Abstract

British social security is now in a time of crisis, where cuts are being made to a system that was already struggling to provide decent security.

In this paper I argue that successful proposals to combat this must
(i) lead to reductions in poverty/inequality;
(ii) fit existing perceptions of claimant “deservingness”, and;
(iii) change deservingness perceptions in the long run.

I conclude that three influential recent proposals – Decent Childhoods1National Salary Insurance2, and The Solidarity Society3 – are only partially successful in meeting these criteria, and that successful reform requires a fusion of the respective insights of each proposal.

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1I failed to find a link to the document but here is a blog post about it.
2by Graeme Cook published by IPPR – full report (PDF 18pp)
3by Tim Horton and James Gregory for The Fabian Society summary  (PDF 20pp) full report (PDF 260pp)


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