Minimum Income Protection in Flux (Work and Welfare in Europe)
Journal of European Public Policy 20 9 , , Artiklar 1—20 Visa fler.
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Social assistance and EU poverty thresholds — K Nelson European Sociological Review 29 2 , , Mechanisms of poverty alleviation: Taxation of social insurance and redistribution: Minimum income protection and European Integration: Trends and levels of minimum benefits in comparative perspective, — K Nelson International Journal of Health Services 38 1 , , On the horizontal axes, I note the year , which is sometimes thought to be a point at which the upward trajectory of US social policy generosity slowed or reversed.
Social Security recipients Share of the population. Social Security benefit level Average yearly benefit. Monthly benefit multiplied by Early death of a family breadwinner is far less common than in earlier eras, but it still happens. In most instances the family receives Social Security Survivors benefits. About 6 million Americans receive these benefits, and the program pays out twice as much each year as all private life insurance policies combined. Social Security Survivors recipients Share of the population.
Social Security Survivors benefit level Average yearly benefit. The average benefit level has increased only a little since the s, mainly because earnings for Americans in the lower half have been stagnant.
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Unemployment insurance recipients Share of the population. Unemployment insurance benefit level Average yearly benefit. Weekly benefit multiplied by Both shares have increased steadily over the past generation. Disability benefit recipients Share of the population. Disability benefit level Average yearly benefit. Average for two categories: America has two principal social assistance programs: That mids reform gave states more leeway in deciding eligibility criteria and benefit levels, and it placed a five-year lifetime cap on eligibility.
But as figure 31 indicates, that continues a trend dating all the way back to Food stamps SNAP has moved in the other direction. It became a nationwide program in The benefit too has risen, though only a little. SNAP recipients Share of the population. SNAP benefit level Average yearly benefit per recipient family. The credit is refundable; if it amounts to more than the household owes in federal income taxes, the household receives the difference as a cash refund. It therefore functions like a cash benefit. This share rose sharply between the late s and the mids and again in the s, as figure 34 indicates.
These increases were a result of changes in eligibility criteria, increases in the benefit amount, and stagnant wage levels for Americans on the lower rungs of the wage ladder. As figure 35 shows, this amount increased significantly between and Since then it has been flat.
EITC recipients Share of the population. These numbers are estimates, calculated using the number of EITC recipient households and the average number of persons per household. EITC benefit level Average yearly benefit per recipient household. The federal government has been involved in the provision of housing assistance to low-income Americans since the s, when it began construction of public housing units.
Today this assistance primarily takes the form of vouchers that recipients use to help defray the cost of rent, a tax credit to developers who build housing for low-income renters, and a million or so public housing units.
Social programs
Low-income housing assistance recipients Share of the population. These numbers are estimates, calculated using the number of housing assistance recipient households and units and the average number of persons per household. Low-income housing assistance expenditures Expenditures per recipient household. The measure includes social assistance, child benefits, housing benefits, and refundable tax credits. The US is one of the least generous in the group.
Minimum income protection Includes social assistance, child benefits, housing benefits, and refundable tax credits. Average of benefits for a single person, a single parent with two dependent children, and a two-parent family with two children. Social scientists and policy makers traditionally have viewed the welfare state as a means of achieving economic security and redistribution. Social programs provide money and services to individuals and households in order to insure against market-based risks and reduce market-generated inequality and poverty.
In the past two decades, an additional goal has become prominent: Policy reforms and innovations have more and more aimed to increase paid work. Sweden in the s put in place a set of active labor market programs, including retraining, job placement assistance, and public sector jobs as a last resort.
The activation turn has a number of causes. Getting more citizens into paid work means greater payroll and income tax revenue without an increase in tax rates, and it also means lower expenditures on social assistance, unemployment compensation, and related programs. The policy tools used to boost employment are wide-ranging. Some impose requirements, while others provide incentives. Some work on the demand side, attempting to increase hiring by employers, while others try to increase the supply of those seeking employment. Policy makers have attempted to do this in a variety of ways: Government benefits with easy eligibility conditions, generous payments, and lengthy duration may discourage employment.
Public assistance with finding new employment has long been a key feature of Swedish active labor market policy. Since the mids its use has become more widespread. A trend in recent years has been toward individualized assistance: In areas where key sources of employment are not easily accessible via public transport, governments sometimes provide subsidies to defray the cost of transportation to and from work. Cash transfers and tax credits to people in paid work but with low earnings are increasingly prominent in affluent countries.
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The United States and the United Kingdom began using such employment-conditional earnings subsidies in the s, and in recent decades most of the other rich longstanding-democratic countries have adopted some version of them. Part-time jobs are an attractive option for some people, especially second earners in households. In a number of countries they now account for a quarter or more of all employment, and in the Netherlands a third.
Some of this is due to inability to find a satisfactory full-time position, but surveys suggest much of it is by choice, particularly where part-time employees have the same wage and benefit status as full-timers. The Dutch employment success story since the early s is largely one of part-time employment growth. Flexible work schedules also tend to be attractive to potential employees, again especially those who would be a second earner within a household.
Protections for such employees as well as financial incentives to employers for expanding flexible work-time options can help to attract them. Some countries have moved to shift the tax burden away from payroll taxes in order to reduce nonwage labor costs. Also, in some nations the tax system penalizes a couple with two earners relative to those with just one earner. Reducing this disincentive can help to boost employment, particularly among women.
Session A4: Minimum income protection in flux
In jobs where productivity is low and difficult to increase, employers may hire fewer people if wages are too high. Lowering the wage floor may therefore increase employment.
In countries with a statutory minimum wage, policy makers can do this directly. In the United States and the Netherlands, the inflation-adjusted value of the statutory minimum has been allowed to fall since the early s. In nations without a statutory minimum wage, one response has been the formation of formal or informal social pacts, in which government encourages wage restraint in exchange for changes in certain social programs, taxes, or active labor market programs.
Since the mids, most of the continental European and Nordic countries have reduced the stiffness of employment protection regulations, mainly by easing restrictions on fixed-term temporary employment. Originally confined to the Nordic countries along with Belgium and France, these programs now are embraced to one degree or another by many affluent nations. Most of the rich democratic countries have higher employment rates now than they did twenty-five years ago, despite just recently emerging from the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Moreover, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, consistent practitioners of employment-promoting social programs since the s, tend to be at or near the top in employment. The US experience also is suggestive. Should early education be universal or targeted to the poor? Should paid parental leave be for six months or one year or three years? Should there be a statutory minimum wage? If so, how high? What is the best mix of carrots and sticks for social assistance recipients reluctant to enter or reenter paid work?
Should low market income be supplemented by an employment-conditional earnings subsidy? Is individualized assistance more helpful in the early years, the K years, or later in the life course? What is the right balance between employment protection for workers and flexibility for employers? Getting the policy details right requires experimentation, adjustment, and learning from best practice. And since countries vary in political structure, economic institutions, culture, and in many other ways, optimal policies and policy combinations may well vary too.
Most of us like security. As we become more affluent, we are willing to pay more to insure against major risks. Government social programs cushion against some risks more effectively and efficiently than individuals, families, voluntary organizations, or markets. As a result, once countries achieve sustained economic growth, they tend to adopt and expand such programs. The Generational Welfare Contract: Justice, Institutions and Outcomes. European Social Models, Protection and Inclusion. Institute for Future Studies. Swedish Institute for Social Research. With Tommy Ferrarini and Joakim Palme.
How does health care fare? Fighting Working Poverty in Post-industrial Economies: With Ingalill Montanari and Joakim Palme. Il caso svedese Activation and Coordination: Wivel Handbook on Scandinavian Politics. Inequalities and Societal Impacts in Rich Countries: Oxford University Press In press. Institutional reforms and performance in EU countries. Minimum Income Protection in Flux. The National Board of Health and Welfare.
Dahl Quality of Work in the European Union. Concept, Data and Debates from a Transnational Perspective. Ericsson Welfare Politics Cross-Examined: Inventory on core social policy databases and indicators for comparative research, Deliverable