The limited success of employment-based social protection measures under the diverging patterns of post-COVID-19 recovery rekindled interest in a social policy framework known as the Basic Income (BI) support. We test the potential of the BI program using five alternative scenarios ranging from households with income less than half of median income to all adults with estimates of their respective fiscal costs. We then employ an applied general equilibrium model to analyze the economy-wide effects and welfare implications for Turkey in the long run through 2030. We evaluate the macroeconomic and welfare effects of both a business-as-usual fiscal program and an alternative (green BI scenario) comprising of (i) carbon tax levied on the fossil fuel producing industry; (ii) corporate income taxation policy reform that aims at expanding the revenue base and consolidation of the fiscal space of the government; and (iii) restructuring of public consumption expenditures by introducing rationality and efficiency in the structure of fiscal expenditures. Our model solutions reveal that a green BI scenario not only achieves a higher GDP and welfare in the medium to long run but also helps Turkey to reduce its carbon emissions in line with the global policy challenges of a green recovery.

More than one in ten Australians live in poverty, with many relying on government provided support and emergency payments. These payments are insufficient to cover basic costs of living, and as a result, many people are forced to engage with emergency and community food assistance. The aim of this article is to explore the experiences of those who, despite being in receipt of an Australian welfare payment and engaged with the welfare system, rely on charitable food assistance for some or all of their weekly food supply. Interviews were conducted with seventy-eight people and were thematically analysed. The main findings of this study are the significant challenges faced by people who are on very low incomes when navigating the government-provided welfare and non-government charity systems and the insufficiency of the welfare system in providing income to meet basic costs of living.

Academic discussion of social challenges and the government interventions which might address them are overlooking social innovation as an option. Contemporary trends at the community-public management interface, however, show an upsurge of interest in social innovation as a way of simultaneously creating social benefit and economic opportunity. While this indicates that the idea has genuine substance our observation of international and Australian developments convinces us that there is now sufficient experience upon which to base an understanding of what social innovation is and why it has policy significance. In this article we identify some components of social innovation practice and indicate how these might be theorised into generally applicable models.

Social policy developed as a research field and academic discipline to ensure protection from social risks in the era of emerging capitalism and industrialization. While welfare states have successfully increased their citizens’ wellbeing, they have also contributed to the ecological crisis, while the shared scientific understanding of exceeded planetary boundaries and worsening climate change scenarios has not (yet) reshaped mainstream social policy research. In this article, we suggest that the established traditions in social policy research can nevertheless provide a solid ground for responding to the climate emergency and facilitating the sustainable transformation of society and the economy. With a focus on four of the research fields that are central in social policy scholarship – risks, citizenship, welfare regimes, and wellbeing – we develop an ecosocial research agenda. By discussing the classic and climate-adjusted understandings of these fields, we open future pathways for social policy research and invite scholars to engage with our proposed research agenda.

Despite growing interest in proposals for a universal basic income, little advance has been made in implementation. Here we explore policy options for an Australian Basic Income. Our analysis responds to concerns that Basic Income is both too expensive and too radical a departure from existing welfare state structures to be a feasible policy option. Drawing on policy and Basic Income scholarship we identify changes to Australia’s current means-tested benefits structures that move substantially towards Basic Income while remaining consistent with historic policy norms, which we call ‘affluence testing’. Using microsimulation we explore fiscal and distributional trade-offs associated with the implementation of an affluence-tested Basic Income. Our results suggest Basic Income has the potential to significantly reduce inequality and poverty while also requiring taxes to rise substantially. Placing these trade-offs in international context we find the policy would reduce inequality to levels similar to Nordic welfare states while increasing overall taxation to approximately the OECD average.

Very few would dispute the proposition that evidence about the effects of different policy options should inform policy decisions. However, there is less agreement on the nature of the evidence needed. In addition, there may be problems in evaluating that evidence. This is particularly the case when experts offer conflicting advice. This article presents the position held by Professor Nevile that in giving policy advice to the government, it is almost always desirable to draw on a range of different policy instruments. While theoretical input is usually important, it is even more important that theory does not lose contact with the real world. Factual descriptions of the real world and the use of a theoretical toolkit containing more than one theory are essential in achieving this goal. These principles are illustrated by a discussion of a particular category of policy advice – the evaluation of government programmes.

Australian social policy has seen apparently contradictory developments over the period of economic restructuring. Social spending has increased based on a highly redistributive model while inequality has grown. This article explores the relationship between Australia’s experience of economic restructuring and the political dynamics of an emerging ‘dual welfare state’. Importantly, the article argues that Australian reformers did not reject the state per se, nor egalitarianism as an objective. Instead, reform sought to combine greater competition with compensation, generating larger inequalities in market incomes alongside growing social spending. The article explores how Labor combined neoclassical ideas about competition with a commitment to a ‘small state’ version of social democracy. This did moderate inequalities through the period of restructuring, but it also altered the dynamics of political contestation. The article provides two typologies to understand this political dynamic, arguing forms of marketisation opened the door to a political contest over the nature, rather than the extent, of public provision, while the model of targeting reinforced paternalist tendencies inherent in neoliberal reform.

Prof. Marglin argues for a new economics and a new conception of welfare as part of the move to a sustainable future. However, the typical criticisms of the treatment of welfare in economics appear wide of the mark, and there are good reasons to regard this treatment as accurate enough for the job at hand. The critics appear to miss how demanding the job of reshaping economics in their (implicit) desired image would be, and how unproductive it might turn out to be to insist on such a reshaping as a precursor to serious action.

This article examines trends in social disadvantage in Australia over the decade to 2018 using two approaches: a monetary approach using poverty and a living standards approach using deprivation. We compare the two approaches, highlight their implications and assess whether the evidence produced by each is consistent with trickle-down effects. The estimates allow for variations in thresholds, the treatment of housing costs and relative and absolute measures. The findings indicate an overall decline in poverty that is dependent on the treatment of housing costs and a more consistent decline in deprivation but with little or no improvement for many experiencing poverty or deprivation. Poverty and deprivation among unemployed households were above those for people in other labour force states throughout the period and while these differentials have narrowed, the findings suggest that trickle-down effects did not reach many of those highly disadvantaged or are subject to long delays.

The article investigates whether and to what extent the welfare policies of Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRPs) vary in diverse government coalitions. Relying on a multidimensional framework differentiating coalitional politics along the welfare size and deservingness dimension, we conduct a comparative case study analysing welfare reforms of the ‘standard’ centre-right/PRRP government coalition ÖVP-FPÖ in Austria and the ‘new’ populist government coalition M5S-Lega in Italy. We find that both PRRPs do not promote pro-welfare policies in general, but rather opt for selective expansion of benefits for ‘makers’, while aiming at retrenching benefits for ‘takers’. This welfare strategy includes pensioners and male breadwinner families but excludes migrants or long-term unemployed. The analysis furthermore shows that the central line of conflict with the centre-right ÖVP is mostly about the size of welfare policies, especially for ‘deserving’ citizens, while with the socially more left-leaning M5S it is rather centred around the deservingness dimension, e.g., benefits for takers. These results offer a more fine-grained understanding of the PRRPs’ welfare agenda and their coalitional welfare politics in office.

Does a universal basic income (UBI) affect voter turnout? This article argues that the introduction of an unconditional cash payment—where citizens receive money independent of employment status, age, or indigence—can have a turnout-enhancing effect. I evaluate the argument using the introduction of the Permanent Fund Dividend in Alaska. Differences-in-differences estimates covering November general elections from 1978 to 2000 provide compelling evidence that the Alaskan UBI has a significant positive effect on turnout. The results further suggest that the turnout increase was not a one-off effect but persists over a period of almost 20 years. Thus, a UBI has the potential to positively affect turnout among an entire electorate, adding to the discussion around potential welfare reforms in western democracies.

Economic and health crises have profound political consequences for public support for social policy, historically setting in motion a massive expansion of governmental programs. Is demand for social protection likely to increase among citizens exposed to risk in an era in which populist messages are prominent? We show that this depends critically on the precise targets that populists evoke as enemies of the people. We distinguish between two types of political rhetoric deployed by populist politicians in their claims to represent the authentic people—one opposing the authority of domestic elites, including technocrats, and one attacking foreigners. We examine the extent to which each rhetorical strategy reduces or enhances popular demand for social policies by randomly exposing Americans to these frames as part of a public opinion survey conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our results show that the two messages have different consequences for support for redistribution among respondents exposed to risk: populist anti-foreign rhetoric that blames foreign countries for the onset of the pandemic increases demand for expansion of social protection compared to populist anti-elite rhetoric.