191 Journal of Poverty and Social Justice • vol 26 • no 2 • 191–206 • © Policy Press 2018 Print ISSN 1759 8273 • Online ISSN 1759 8281 • https://doi.org/10.1332/175982718X15200701225179 Accepted for publication 10 January 2018 • First published online 17 March 2018 article Basic income and a public job offer: complementary policies to reduce poverty and unemployment Felix FitzRoy, frf@st-andrews.ac.uk University of St Andrews, UK Jim Jin University of St Andrews, UK Unconditional basic income, or a public-sector job guarantee, are usually discussed as
COVID-19 has exposed defects in our current political–economic order: extreme wealth inequality, an ideology-driven government, a greedy corporate sector, a precarious labour force and a looming climate catastrophe.
This accessible book offers a unique blend of moral imagination and social–political analysis to overcome these defects. It focuses on two characteristics of contemporary societies – hegemony and complexity – that have inhibited our ability to imagine, and take seriously, better practices and institutions.
Considering housing, work, governance, finance, climate change and more, this book presents feasible and pragmatic solutions which are informed by a comprehensive vision of a flourishing, sustainable and richly democratic society.
Are living wages an unaffordable and unwieldy aspiration or a key progressive reform? Demands for fair minimum incomes have dominated national debates amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
This topical book addresses the rapidly shifting politics of minimum wages in US, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Australia, where workfare has compelled many to find low-income work and where neoliberal thinking about minimum wages has prevailed.
Analysing minimum wage policies within a political-economy narrative, this innovative book offers an alternative to the Basic Income narrative and identifies the success of Living Wage campaigns as central to welfare state change.
In challenging social science’s established orthodoxies, this first in a series of books is a call for its disciplines to embrace new theoretical paradigms and research methods to better understand the reality of life in a post-COVID world.
By offering a detailed insight into the harmful effects of neoliberalism before the pandemic, as well as the intervallic period the world is currently living through, the authors show how it is more important than ever for social science to evolve and take a leading role in contextualising the biggest crisis of the 21st century.
This is a critical blueprint for ongoing debates about the COVID-19 pandemic and alternative modes of research.
In the five years since Money for Everyone was published the idea of a Citizen’s Basic Income has rocketed in interest to an idea whose time has come.
In moving the debate on from the desirability of a basic income this fully updated and revised edition now includes comprehensive discussions on feasibility and implementation.
Using the consultation undertaken by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales as a basis, Torry examines a number of implementation methods for Citizen’s Basic Income and considers the cost implications.
Including real-life examples from the UK, and data from case studies and pilots in Alaska, Namibia, India, Iran and elsewhere, this is the essential research-based introduction to the Citizen’s Basic Income.
The ongoing social crises and moral conflicts evident in global social policy debates are addressed in this timely volume.
Leading interdisciplinary scholars focus on the ‘social’ of social policy, which is increasingly conceived in a globalised form, as new international agreements and global goals engender social struggles. They tackle pressing ‘social questions’, many of which have been exacerbated by COVID-19, including growing inequality, changing world population, ageing societies, migration and intersectional disadvantage.
This ground-breaking volume critically engages with contested conceptions of the social which are increasingly deployed by international institutions and policy makers. Focusing on social sustainability, social cohesion, social justice, social wellbeing and social progress this text is even more crucial as policy makers look to accelerate socially sustainable solutions to the world’s biggest challenges.
Austerity was presented as the antidote to sluggish economies, but it has had far-reaching effects on jobs and employment conditions.
With an international team of editors and authors from Europe, North America and Australia, this illuminating collection goes beyond a sole focus on public sector work and uniquely covers the impact of austerity on work across the private, public and voluntary spheres.
Drawing on a range of perspectives, the book engages with the major debates surrounding austerity and neoliberalism, providing grounded analysis of the everyday experience of work and employment.
In this challenging and original study, Wistow positions social policy within political economy and social contract debates.
Focusing on individual, intergenerational and societal outcomes related to health, place and social mobility in England, he draws on empirical evidence to show how the social contract produces longstanding, highly patterned and inequitable consequences in these areas. Globalisation and the political economy simultaneously contribute to the extent and nature of social problems and to social policy’s capacity to address them effectively.
Applying social contract theory, this book shows that society needs to take ownership of the outcomes it produces and critically interrogates the individualism inherent within the political economy.
Poverty street addresses one of the UK’s major social policy concerns: the gap between the poorest neighbourhoods and the rest of the country. It is an account of neighbourhood decline, a portrait of conditions in the most disadvantaged areas and an up-to-date analysis of the impact of the government’s neighbourhood renewal policies.
The book:
· explores twelve of the most disadvantaged areas in England and Wales, from Newcastle in the north to Thanet in the south, providing the reader with a unique journey around the country’s poverty map;
· combines evidence from neighbourhood statistics, photographs and the accounts of local people with analysis of broader social and economic trends;
· assesses the effect of government policies since 1997 and considers future prospects for reducing inequalities.
CASE Studies on Poverty, Place and Policy series
Series Editor: John Hills, Director of CASE at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Drawing on the findings of the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion’s extensive research programme into communities, poverty and family life in Britain, this fascinating series:
Provides a rich and detailed analysis of anti-poverty policy in action.
Focuses on the individual and social factors that promote regeneration, recovery and renewal.
For other titles in this series, please follow the series link from the main catalogue page.
A uniquely hybrid approach to welfare state policy, ecological sustainability and social transformation, this book explores transformative models of welfare change.
Using Ireland as a case study, it addresses the institutional adaptations needed to move towards a sustainable welfare state, and the policy of making such transformation happen.
It takes a theoretical and practical approach to implementing an alternative paradigm for welfare in the context of globalisation, climate change, social cohesion, automation, economic and power inequalities, intersectionality and environmental sustainability, as well as perpetual crisis, including the pandemic.
