Abstract
Of all the European welfare states, the UK most clearly represents the liberal regime type - notwithstanding a shift towards 'social investment' under New Labour - as defined by its residual, targeted benefit structure and increasingly punitive activation regime. The idiosyncratic institutional characteristics of the UK welfare state give rise to challenges and opportunities with respect to prospects for the introduction of (some form of) basic income. Despite a large and growing population of 'disaffected' precarious and low-paid workers and widespread dissatisfaction with the increasingly punitive sanctions regime, significant barriers to the emergence of a sufficiently large and coherent constituency of support for basic income remain. Thus, while institutional inertia and political considerations may preclude anything more than marginal changes to the existing system, a number of policy options falling short of a 'full' basic income - but retaining some of its core features - appear relatively feasible.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 265-275 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Social Policy and Society |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 3 Aug 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 30 Apr 2019 |
Keywords
- Basic income
- policy experiments
- political parties
- tax-benefit modelling
- welfare state
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Political Science and International Relations
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Nick Pearce
- Institute for Policy Research (IPR) - Director of the Institute for Policy Research
- UKRI CDT in Accountable, Responsible and Transparent AI
- Made Smarter Innovation: Centre for People-Led Digitalisation
- Bath Institute for the Augmented Human
Person: Research & Teaching, Core staff, Affiliate staff