Safety nets: universal benefit, means-tested support or basic income?

Sarah Marchal and Ive Marx

Chapter 16 in Handbook on Labour Markets in Transition, 2024, pp 300-318 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Theoretical and empirical debates about the optimal design of financial safety nets - either means-tested, “universal”, or in the form basic income - have gained importance in recent years to support in-work incomes, or to cover temporal income gaps between successive interrupted employment spells. This chapter discusses the current state of minimum income protection and some of the main policy challenges in designing adequate social safety nets. We also ask whether a basic income is a viable alternative to systems currently in place. We are sceptical about that. Instead, we advocate a layered, multi-instrumental approach inspired by what demonstrably works in the best performing countries at present.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Sociology and Social Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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