Social Protection / Welfare

Abstract: We study the effect of social distancing, food vulnerability, welfare and labour COVID-19 policy responses on riots, violence against civilians and food-related conflicts. Our analysis uses georeferenced data for 24 African countries with monthly local prices and real-time conflict data reported in the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) from January 2015 until early May 2020. Lockdowns and recent welfare policies have been implemented in light of COVID-19, but in some contexts also likely in response to ongoing conflicts. To mitigate the potential risk of endogeneity, we use instrumental variables. We exploit the exogeneity of global commodity prices, and three variables that increase the risk of COVID-19 and efficiency in response such as countries colonial heritage, male mortality rate attributed to air pollution and prevalence of diabetes in adults. We find that the probability of experiencing riots, violence against civilians, food-related conflicts and food looting has increased since lockdowns. Food vulnerability has been a contributing factor. A 10% increase in the local price index is associated with an increase of 0.7 percentage points in violence against civilians. Nonetheless, for every additional anti-poverty measure implemented in response to COVID-19 the probability of experiencing violence against civilians, riots and food-related conflicts declines by approximately 0.2 percentage points. These anti-poverty measures also reduce the number of fatalities associated with these conflicts. Overall, our findings reveal that food vulnerability has increased conflict risks, but also offer an optimistic view of the importance of the state in providing an extensive welfare safety net.

Abstract: This is a preliminary guide to legal issues that impact groups engaged in mutual aid. It is targeted to groups that have been responding to the COVID-19 crisis in New York, but has information that may be relevant for groups engaged in mutual aid in other contexts and other places. It gives legal information on topics including: risk of liability; questions around governance and incorporation; safety policies, liability waivers, and insurance; banking and mutual aid; funding mutual aid and taxation of mutual aid; crowdfunding regulations; and food storage and safety rules.

Abstract: Absolute poverty has dropped markedly in Bulgaria but income inequality has increased substantially in the aftermath of the GFC. This increase is due to a rise in market income inequality that was compounded by a reduction in fiscal redistribution. The redistributive role of direct taxation has declined with the introduction of a flat tax and social spending is relatively low and decreasing (as a share of GDP), is concentrated on a few social risks, and experienced a decline in its redistributive efficiency. The COVID-19 crisis is likely to deepen income inequality, increasing the room for redistributive policies.

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered an unprecedented shock to the United States and the world. It is unclear precisely how long the twin crises, epidemiological and economic, will last. And it is difficult to gauge the extent and direction of the changes in American life these crises will cause. Nonetheless, it is beyond dispute that the COVID-19 pandemic is putting significant strain on both the ability of Americans to meet basic needs and our government's capacity to assist them. Federal, state, and local government have responded in various ways to deploy existing safety net programs like Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), tax credits, and unemployment insurance to meet the surge in need. At this early stage of the crisis, it is worth a) identifying the ways in which the pandemic feeds on and exacerbates both racial and economic inequality in America, b) analyzing the government response in detail, c) considering which changes should outlast the current crisis, and d) how government, in the future, should build social welfare programs that are better suited to meet the needs of all Americans in the coming years. This Essay tries to do these four things in a way that is cogent and useful to legal and lay audiences alike.

Abstract: Examines reforms made to UK social security administration in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Discusses the rise in benefit claims, and changes to universal credit, housing benefit, jobseeker's allowance, the appeals procedure, statutory sick pay, and the position in Scotland. Considers the implications of the reforms, including issues of benefit access for the disabled and digital exclusion.

Abstract: Recently, individual states have decided to restrict COVID-19 financial aid measures to those who have paid taxes to said state thus generally excluding those who are working cash-in-hand/unreported employment, unemployed, students, or retired. This contribution assesses COVID-19 financial support packages with an emphasis on common state aid features targeting individuals with the intention to critically evaluate if, when, and how these measures discriminate against the socio-economic status of the recipient. The impact that COVID-19 has had on income-generating activities is especially harsh for unprotected workers and the most vulnerable groups in the informal economy. The preliminary results of this study indicate that impoverished and vulnerable groups such as immigrants, cash-in hand workers/unreported workers, unemployed, students, and pensioners are not only at risk of losing their sources of income due to the pandemic's economic effects, but they are also excluded from receiving crucial financial aid. This illustrates that there is great need for a revision of national COVID-19 policies and budget allocations to ensure a more equitable protection of individuals.

Abstract: The unprecedented global lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the extreme vulnerability of 'essential' yet underpaid workers, the vast inequality between the wealthy and the less fortunate, and the bottomless pit facing those without a social safety net. While the crisis has laid bare the near-universality of human susceptibility to disease and unemployment in a world in which few can safely work, it has also highlighted the disproportionate precarity experienced by low-wage and contingent workers, people of color, and non-citizens. Well before the pandemic, rampant socioeconomic and racial inequality, high underemployment and concentration of wealth, and technological advances threatened to render many human workers obsolete, powerless, and in need of social support and care. At the same time, in the United States, the Trump administration targeted an already shrunken social safety net for elimination through the extension of punitive workfare ideology originally reserved for poor, single mothers to all forms of government-funded support, including health care, nutrition, and housing assistance available those just above the poverty line regardless of parental status. Such ideology effectively conditions public support to needy individuals (some already employed at low wages) on their willingness and ability to engage in (more) work, regardless of pay, employment conditions, or caregiving obligations. Left to our own devices, whether in times of crisis or calm, advocates have sought to strengthen interpersonal relationships and community bonds for the provision of basic social support for the poor, as a way for ordinary people to help those whom the government will not.

This Article examines two experimental models--restorative justice and 'radical help'--that seek to reform welfare administration explicitly to weave people back into the fabric of the social safety net. These social welfare innovations foreground human relationships as an underutilized resource to highlight the power of meaningful social connections to help those experiencing everything from disability and discrimination to bad luck not just avoid disaster, but thrive and flourish in strong communities. Each model emphasizes human relationships to help poor people benefit voluntarily from social supports and community engagement instead of punishing them for noncompliance with paternalistic and exploitative government program work mandates. Such relationships can center poor people's lived experiences and combine collaborative, localized, and responsive community support with technology to facilitate social networking and, ideally, increased economic security and empowerment.

At the same time, without appropriate safeguards or oversight, overreliance on private relationships for social welfare provision risks replicating existing forms of disempowerment. In practice, both models risk reinscribing a private, marginalized sphere, neither restorative nor radical, in which those who perform the work of nurturing relationships remain subject to the will of those with power to offer or withhold assistance. Cautious optimism must be combined with meaningful protections in order to preserve the most promising aspects of new models while preventing the worst harms of what could be in effect a return to private, discretionary provision--or deprivation--of social support. Informed by feminist and antiracist theories critical of both market relations mediated by the state and private family relations entirely insulated from oversight, this Article concludes that we must continue to explore and adapt new models of welfare provision that truly protect and promote all human potential.

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed starkly and publicly the close interconnections between social and economic inequality, health equity, and population health. To better understand what social policies would best promote population health, economic recovery, and preparedness for future pandemics, we must look both upstream and abroad for inspiration. In this essay, I argue for a suite of near-term and longer-term interventions, including universal health insurance and paid sick leave, upgraded wage insurance policies, tax reform, investments in parental leave, child care, and education, and upgraded government record systems. Policies that equalize the distribution of the social determinants of health and promote social solidarity will also improve population health and economic performance and allow us to confront future pandemics more successfully.

Abstract: Reviews key reforms made to the social security benefits regime in response to the coronavirus pandemic by the Coronavirus Act 2020 and secondary legislation. Summarises the main amendments concerning universal credit, carer's allowance, tax credits, housing benefit, statutory sick pay and the social fund.

Abstract: In the contribution, the authors address functional or short-term and systemic or long-term effects of the COVID-19 epidemic on European social law and social policy. They focus on the legal and factual status of mobile workers and self-employed persons, the coordination of sickness benefits in kind and cross-border provision of healthcare services in times of a health crisis, and, most notably, on the potential resurrection of the national welfare state that is going up against the further development of the European social model and European Union's deeper social integration. Since the epidemic appears to still be in full swing and since Member States' anti-corona measures seem to be complemented on a day-to-day basis, the authors' deliberations are based on general assumptions regarding free movement of workers and self-employed persons, social security coordination, and the nature of the European social model, coupled with what they perceive to be key challenges posed by the COVID-19 epidemic in the field of European social law and social policy, also affecting, at least indirectly, national rules and policies.

Abstract: This article speculates about the future of Australia's welfare model given the severe disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, it offers a brief description of the major features of Australia's political handling of the welfare state over the past decade or so, with a focus on the Newstart benefit and the tight policing of the benefit system.