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Yet, this could be rectified at a cost of around 0.4% GDP. Compared with UBI, costs are modest. To provide similar entitlements in childcare, adult social care, housing and infrastructure, as well as transport has been estimated to cost about 4.3% of GDP (Coote and Percy, 2020).[5] Conclusion In conclusion, there are strong justifications for moving towards UBS as a principled framework for allocating resources and reforming welfare systems. UBS are in-kind benefits that represent a ‘social income’ – an essential component of the means by which individuals and households are able to flourish. The case for it is theoretical - wellbeing is multi-dimensional; normative - the potential of UBS to secure greater equality, social efficiency, collective solidarity, and long-term sustainability; and political – UBS is incremental, relatively cheap, and can achieve superior results to a system of unconditional cash payments alongside markets for commodified services. Of course income transfers are just as important and require reform, but not at the expense of collectively provided in-kind benefits. Recommendations and pointers for future action UBS is a principled policy framework not a single policy (like UBI). Clearly different countries face quite different contexts, institutions, and policy histories. Similarly, the pattern of existing provision will vary across health, education, housing, social care, and so on. There are several implications for research. One is to investigate the social, environmental and economic impacts of collectively provided services (social income) across different countries in the short, medium, and longer term. Another is to explore public and political interest in applying the UBS framework in different locations. A third is to seek out best practice in each domain across countries, regions, and cities. And then to consider if and how lessons can be learned elsewhere. UNESCO would be ideally suited to carry out such comparative research. Similarly, an international network of supporters and advocates of UBS should be built up. Policy makers should turn their attention to ways in which ‘social income’ and cash payments interact and seek optimal ways of reforming social protection systems to support rather than undermine the collective approach.

SUSTAINABILITY Sustainability involves, at its simplest, an inherent ‘capacity for continuance’.46 That suggests a system that can function in ways that continue to achieve its desired goals over time. UBS could have positive impacts on sustainability through prevention of harm, through economic stabilisation and through helping to mitigate climate change and the depletion of natural resources. Depending on how they are designed and delivered, and how they interact with each other, public services can prevent harm. They are arguably better able to do this than market-based systems, because their aim is not simply to sell specific commodities, but to serve the public interest. When people are healthy and able to think for themselves and function well in society, they are less likely to have problems that require costly interventions. Good education and decent housing can help to avoid illness, for example.47 Preventative services not only help people to stay well and flourish; they also preempt spending in the medium and longer term. They generally cost less than downstream interventions that try to cope with the consequences of harm.48 And they can reduce demand for a range of services, not just healthcare. Unemployment, anti-social behaviour and many forms of crime, for example, have roots in poverty and deprivation.49 Public services can help to stabilise economic fluctuations by generating relatively secure employment. And, while they are vulnerable to government austerity policies, they are not directly linked to downturns in the market. By acting as a counter cyclical buffer, helping to offset the effects of market cycles and recession, they contribute to the economy’s ‘capacity for continuance’. A move towards more and better public services is likely to prove more environmentally sustainable than a market based system. There is some comparative evidence that publicly funded health care has a lower carbon footprint than privately funded alternatives. For example, the US healthcare system directly accounts for 8 per cent of emissions in the US, compared with 3 per cent of UK emissions directly stemming from the NHS. This is due both to the greater macro-efficiency and lower expenditure shares of health in the UK, and to lower emissions per pound or dollar spent, presumably as a result of better allocation of resources and procurement practices.50 Public services perform important precautionary environmental and climate functions in their own right. The impact of Hurricane Katrina on the poor and black populations of New Orleans, in contrast to the population of Cuba, affected by the same hurricane, demonstrated the importance of collective services in dealing with climate-related risks. They are also better able to pioneer and support environmentally sustainable practices, for example energy and resource efficiency in social housing and other buildings, and supporting sustainable travel for staff, and are more likely to spread these out among a wider range of institutions. They are more ready to follow guidance and directives from government to reduce emissions, because they share public interest values. Finally, there is some evidence that welfare states are generally better suited to adopting and implementing pro-environmental policies, especially where they embody ideas about shared needs and collective responsibilities.51

The term ‘universal basic services’ (UBS) was originally coined to signpost a policy alternative to ‘universal basic income’ (UBI). The latter is a proposal to give regular, unconditional cash payments to all individuals, regardless of their income or status. The former is a proposal to develop more and better collectively provided services that are free for all who need them, regardless of income or status. Both are put forward as ways of reducing poverty and inequality, and improving wellbeing for all. It is beyond the scope of this paper to consider the case for UBI in any depth. Arguments for and against are well documented elsewhere.2 However, the case for UBS rests in part on whether improving and extending public services is likely to be more effective in addressing poverty, inequality and wellbeing than unconditional cash payments to individuals.3 SHARED NEEDS AND COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITIES. Two principles are fundamental to the rationale for UBS: shared needs and collective responsibilities. We all share certain basic needs that must be satisfied if we are to be able to survive and thrive , think for ourselves and participate in society. Theories of capability and human need converge around this point. Nussbaum (2006) describes three ‘core’ capabilities: of affiliation, bodily integrity and practical reason. Doyal and Gough (1991) identify health and critical autonomy as prerequisites for social participation. This finds an echo in the goals set out by the Social Prosperity Network when it argued the case for UBS to achieve a ‘larger life for the ordinary person’4 through security, opportunity and participation.5 Human needs are not context specific, but universal across time and space. While the detail of how needs are met will vary widely, they always require certain generic ‘satisfiers’ (or ‘intermediate needs’) that do not vary. These were originally listed by need theorists as water, nutrition, shelter, secure and non-threatening work, education, healthcare, security in childhood, significant primary relationships, physical and economic security and a safe environment.6 Some argue that access to motorised transport and to the internet have now become essential for participation in society.7 However, the latter are perhaps best understood as hybrid satisfiers, between specific and generic, because they have not always been essential but are increasingly felt to be so at a global level. The social settlement established after the Second World War expressed a shared resolve that everyone’s basic needs should be met. People should be able to buy certain essentials for themselves and – where costs outstripped most household budgets - services should be provided to all who needed them. A national consensus emerged that responsibility for the welfare of the population was a collective function, conducted by pooling resources and sharing risks through the institutions of government. Marshall (1965) summed up the collective approach to social welfare in the concept of ‘social citizenship’ based on economic and social (as well as civil and political) rights.8 8 WHY SERVICES? The concepts of shared needs and collective responsibilities beg the question of how responsibility should be exercised to meet needs: through income support or through public services and other forms of collective action? This is not a question of either/or but of the balance between them. UBS advocates generally agree that adequate and accessible income support is needed, but that this should be augmented by a ‘social wage’ or ‘virtual income’ from collectively provided services that would otherwise have to be paid for out of individual or household budgets.

The concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) has gained traction recently, with books such as Rutgar Bregman’s “Utopia for Realists” (2017) and a UK petition gaining over 100,000 signatures advocating for the policy, likening it to a silver bullet of solution to today’s injustices. UBI is the provision of a regular, set amount of money to every adult, provided by the government. However, critics have recognised the need for, and benefits of, Universal Basic Services (UBS), the universal free provision of public services such as housing, transport, information, care and energy. These two opposed policies have been increasingly brought into conversation discussing how a post-growth society (that which has little or no economic growth for environmental and social benefit) can be achieved. With the embedded assumption in Western Society that economic growth equals prosperity for all via ‘trickle down’ politics, the provision of sustainable welfare is essential to deliver a just transition. The main arguments for and against UBI vs UBS are derived from the long-standing debate between public vs private sector welfare support. UBI offers social security and freedom by alleviating people from relying on employers and breadwinners for income. However, UBI risks relying on markets for social services such as housing that are subject to market failure. UBS offers social security by taking the price mark off social services and delivering these services through the state. However, the implementation of UBS is dependent on political decision-making, and thus adequate democratic processes and involvement from the public.

Many arguments have been made for Universal Basic Income (UBI). This article summarizes an alternative case: for Universal Basic Services (UBS). The issue of their relationship is not directly considered here, but the argument is made that UBS is more egalitarian and sustainable than UBI, as befits the rethinking of eco-social policy in the face of dangerous climate change. Furthermore, it is argued that UBS is also politically more incremental and reformist than the case for a true UBI. UBS advocates a wider range of free public services enabling every citizen to meet their basic needs and achieve certain levels of security, opportunity, and participation. The core principles are: Universal: guaranteed entitlement according to need and not one’s ability to pay. Basic: sufficient rather than minimal, enabling people to meet their basic needs, participate in society, and flourish. Services: collectively generated activities that serve the public interest. In many countries, public health services and school to higher education are founded on these goals, despite cuts, attacks, and ongoing disputes over principles. UBS poses the question: can we extend these principles to other basic necessities, such as housing, care, transport, information, and nutrition (IGP, 2017)?[1] Clearly, these necessities are all very different things, so there can be no uniform formula to implement UBS. But entitlements to certain levels of provision can be guaranteed and these can be backed up by a menu of public interventions including regulation, standard setting and monitoring, taxation, and subsidies. This does not necessarily entail direct government provision – a plurality of collective and communal providers will be involved with appropriate support from government. But the unifying principle is to extend collective solutions, as opposed to providing income support and leaving provisioning to market forces. The case for collective provision to meet such needs can be made on two main grounds: equity and sustainability (though there are also strong arguments for efficiency and solidarity covered elsewhere but not here). Equity. Free public provision of necessities is always remarkably redistributive – even if the total tax system of a country is broadly proportional to income. On average, in OECD countries, existing public services are worth the equivalent of a huge 76 percent of the post-tax income of the poorest quintile compared with just 14 percent of the richest (Table 1). Public services also contribute to reducing income inequality by between one-fifth and one-third depending on the inequality measure. Free provision of necessities automatically targets lower income households without the disincentive effects that often result from money transfers. Sustainability. Climate heating and ecological breakdown now pose existential challenges to wellbeing. The urgent necessity to move away from unsustainable economic, social, and environmental practices provides a new justification for extending UBS. First, public provisioning systems for healthcare are more sustainable than market systems. For example, the per capita carbon footprint of health care in the USA is two and a half times greater than in the UK and three and half times greater than in several European countries (Figure 1). Second, public services can play a vital role in decarbonising the economy in a just way. For example, Green New Deal programmes to retrofit the vast bulk of the housing stock will require public planning, finance, and management. They will be needed to ensure a ‘just transition’ to lower carbon living, rather than one that will load costs onto the poorest people and communities. Third and relatedly, public consumption through UBS supports sustainable ‘consumption corridors’ (Coote, 2020). But does not a further extension of public services encroach upon peoples’ rights to choose how to spend their incomes? Money is fungible so social transfers including UBI permit people to spend income on whatever they want. The case for consumer sovereignty and market democracy needs to be addressed directly if the arguments for UBS are to prosper. I provide elsewhere a theoretical framework to justify this approach. In summary it depends on two things: a non-monetary conception of wellbeing and a disaggregated model of provisioning.

4.1.2. Universal basic services The proposal for UBS focuses on how people's basic needs can be met most reliably and fairly. Proponents argue that a universal and free, public or collective provision of basic services which directly address people's needs would be more efficient and effective than a market-based approach (Coote and Percy, 2020: 39–43). UBS advocates argue that markets can be unreliable in meeting people's needs, as demonstrated by inflated housing markets or high prices for public transport, especially in systems with private monopolies and complex pricing structures that disadvantage consumers (Bowman et al., 2014; Foundational Economy Collective et al., 2018). They hence argue that public provision can be more effective here: “Providing a single mother with a cash payment to fend for herself in an inflated housing market is not as effective as providing quality public housing” (Pavanelli, 2019). The arguments put forward by UBS proponents rest on specific assumptions: that UBI inherently favours market provision; that governments are not able or willing to regulate markets; and that governments are willing and able to provide high quality goods and services that satisfy basic needs. However, there is no reason why UBI could not be combined with collective provision or market regulation; and public or collective provision does not automatically guarantee that this provision is adequate for satisfying needs. In addition to addressing needs satisfaction directly, UBS could contribute to needs satisfaction indirectly by increasing people's ability to engage in activities that they value. UBS would provide an in-kind, “virtual income” or “social wage” because individuals would no longer need to pay for these services from their income (Coote and Percy, 2020; Gough, 2019). Similar to UBI, this would make people less dependent on the labour market, increase their bargaining power in the workplace, and free them up to pursue activities that they value and that can address needs of others too, such as care and voluntary work. The provision of UBS would also create higher demand for workers in basic services sectors, including health and social care, education, housing, food production, energy, public transport and communication services. Many jobs in some of these sectors require direct personal interaction and are more difficult to rationalise. Since these jobs would be located in the public sphere, they would be sheltered from pressures of international competition (Coote and Percy, 2020: 48; Foundational Economy Collective et al., 2018: 3). This is a benefit in a context with low or no economic growth as it provides more stable job opportunities.

4 Concluding comments The main practical question is of course to know what a “large” stigma means and how empirically relevant the considered levels are. Our model is very stylized, and the results therefore have to be interpreted with care and seen as mainly illustrative. This being said, , in our model is not just a parameter of the utility function; it is expressed in monetary terms and thus well defined. It measures the net of stigma benefit of a unitary means tested transfer. Our condition  ≥ 0 + 1 says that this net benefit must be at least as large as the fraction of the population which receives the transfer. In other words, the stigma cost of the transfer must not exceed the fraction of the population which does not receive it. Intuitively, this appears to be a plausible assumption. In fact, one wouldn’t expect the stigma associated with a transfer, which in equilibrium is received but a majority of the population, to be that large. But this is ultimately an empirical question. Ranney and Kushman (1987) estimate a concept which is closest to our  appears to be who estimate the net of stigma cash equivalent of food stamps. They find an average level of 96%, which is quite in line with our intuition. To sum up, under “plausible” levels of , political economy considerations do not appear to justify a universal system. To draw political support, the crowding out implied by the means testing rule is reduced to extend the benefits to the middle class. However, political support is not enhanced any further by making the benefits universal.

Turn - A UBI replaces a welfare stigma with Oppressive Volunteerism – people are stigmatized if they choose not to work – this entrenches racism

Differential Costs of Take-Up and Self-Targeting A substantial fraction of households who are eligible for a government benefit program do not enroll in the program. Moffitt (2003) and Currie (2006a) summarize an extensive US-based literature studying the reasons for incomplete take-up, including the stigma of receiving benefits, incomplete information, and both the psychic and real costs of applying for programs. A universal basic income may reduce the take-up problem, because the government can in theory send the checks to everyone automatically. This is, of course, easier said than done. Currie (2006b) shows that take-up is incomplete even in programs with universal eligibility in the United States, and a developing country setting raises additional issues. For example, the government would need to have a list of every individual without duplications. Most developing countries do not have such lists, although India has been working over the past decade to issue a unique, unduplicated and biometrically authenticated identity number through the Aadhaar program to each of its more than 1 billion citizens. Even with such a list, a country would need a way of automatically delivering the transfer. In most developing country contexts, most people do not have an address, let alone a bank account, so the idea of “mailing a check to the address on file” would not work. This suggests that even if enrollment is in theory automatic, in practice some take-up decisions and enrollment actions will need to occur. However, having some type of costly take-up can also provide a benefit by helping in the targeting of a program. If the cost/benefit of taking up a program is higher for the rich than for the poor, the poor may be more likely to take up the program. This idea—that having an “ordeal” associated with receiving a program can improve the ability to screen among rich and poor—was developed by Nichols and Zeckhauser (1982), and further studied in the context of take-up decisions by Kleven and Kopczuk (2011). A key result is that one may want to offer a transfer program to all takers, but with the catch that signing up for the program entails a cost that is differentially costly for the rich.

Proponents of a basic income (BI) claim that it could bring significant reductions in financial poverty, on top of many other benefits, including greatly reduced administrative complexity and cost. Using microsimulation analysis in a comparative two-country setting, we show that the potential poverty-reducing impact of BI strongly depends on exactly how and where it is implemented. Implementing a BI requires far more choices than advocates seem to realize. The level at which the BI is set matters, but its exact specification matters even more. Which parts of the existing tax-benefit system are maintained, and which parts are abolished, modified or replaced? The impact of a BI, be it a low or a high one, thus strongly depends on the characteristics of the system that it is (partially) replacing or complementing, as well as the socio-economic context in which it is introduced. Some versions of BI could potentially help to reduce poverty but always at a significant cost and with substantial sections of the population incurring significant losses, which matters for political feasibility. A partial basic income complementing existing provisions appears to make more potential sense than a full basic income replacing them. The simplicity of BI, however, tends to be vastly overstated. 1. Introduction As poverty persists in advanced welfare states some are advocating a radical change in approach. Long dismissed as utopian, a basic income (BI) as a potentially ironclad protection against financial poverty has gained more and more traction. This paper examines what would happen if we introduced various versions of a BI in Belgium and the Netherlands, ranging from a modest one complementing most existing provisions to a generous one replacing many existing provisions. Could a BI reduce or even eliminate poverty in both countries? What would a BI do for the people who are financially worst off? Who would gain and who would lose? Using sophisticated microsimulation analysis, we examine in detail a range of BI schemes and compare their potential impact in Belgium and the Netherlands, countries that share some important characteristics but also differ significantly in some other respects, notably their tax benefit systems and labour market institutions. This analysis is relevant to basic income debates worldwide. It is also relevant for debates on the potential harmonisation of social protection across EU member states. In contrast to common claims, it is not simply the case that the higher the BI the “better” the distributional consequences are, especially if income inequality and poverty reduction are goals. A low, “partial” BI may make more sense than a fully-fledged one that replaces most of what exists.

Will the politics change radically? While some UBI proponents argue that continued pressure on the middle class will make UBI politically feasible, I’m skeptical. Economic pressure on the middle class will not alter UBI’s daunting financing challenges. In fact, more such pressure will likelier increase middle-class resistance to the massive tax increases required to secure UBI without increasing poverty. And we shouldn’t think that we can just get the resources solely or primarily by hitting people at the top. Will we really tax the top 1 percent or top several percent enough to finance most or all of UBI — on top of the higher taxes we’ll want the same group to pay to shoulder a substantial share of the burden of restoring Social Security solvency, repairing the infrastructure, and meeting other critical needs? Increased pressure on the middle class is more likely to put UBI farther out of reach, unless it’s financed heavily — as UBI supporters on the right favor — by shifting income and resources away from the poor. To be sure, there is a possible exception: a carbon tax that returns its proceeds to the public via a universal payment. For a carbon tax to have any chance of enactment in the not-too-distant future, however, it almost certainly will have to allocate a substantial part of its proceeds to uses that are necessary to get the votes to enact it in the first place, such as relief for coal-producing states or regions. There’s also a powerful case for using some of the proceeds to greatly expand and accelerate research into alternative energy technologies; a carbon tax likely won’t be sufficient by itself to arrest global warming. Thus, the proceeds available from a carbon tax to finance universal payments would likely be significantly constrained. If a carbon tax could pass, we might need to focus the proceeds available for these payments on low- and moderate-income families — so the payments would be adequate to offset the higher energy costs these families would face as a result of the tax — rather than extending the payments all the way up the income scale in universal fashion.

Applicants had to be 18 years or older, have a household income at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level and not be participating in another guaranteed income program. Nearly 36 percent of Cook County residents were eligible. It’s not Cook County’s first foray into direct payments, though. Using Coronavirus Relief Fund money, the county allocated $2 million, which soon expanded to $9 million, in one-time allocations of $600 to $1,400. “I think that showed a lot of people inside Cook County government just how valuable this kind of a program could be,” Subkoviak said, noting that program served every person who applied. With the Cook County Promise, the 3,250 families were a compromise between offering families a significant amount and casting a wide net — and a large sample size. “We wanted to help as many people as we could, but at the same time we wanted to have really impacted each of those households’ lives,” Subkoviak said about the amounts. “This kind of assistance can make a difference in people’s lives beyond just being able to purchase things. This could give someone the cushion to be able to take time off work, or not have to take an extra shift and be able to see their kid’s soccer game. So many people are just working and sleeping and this can give them a chance to take a breath.”

Trade-off costs are also problematic for a UBI because universal basic income (by nature of being universal) cannot target cash disbursements to those who need them most. Targeting mechanisms are important as they enable governments to provide greater financial relief to those who desperately need it. A UBI, on the other hand, provides lessened financial relief to a mixed pool of individuals who may or may not need it. Benjamin Olken and Rema Hanna, professors at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studied the positive effects of targeted cash transfers versus universal ones. Their paper, published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, explains that “existing targeting methods in developing countries, while imperfect, appear to deliver substantial improvements in welfare compared to universal programs, because they can transfer much more on a per-beneficiary basis to the poor as compared with universal programs.”9

Narrowly versus Widely Targeted Programs with a Fixed Budget If the government only cares about making sure the poor have access to transfers of some type, a universal basic income—which eliminates exclusion error entirely—may seem attractive. However, as we move to the right in Figure 4A, by raising the cutoff level c, more and more people become eligible for the transfer. If the total budget for the program is fixed, then the transfer given per-person falls as we move to the right on this curve. Therefore, moving to the right on the curve not only changes the tradeoff between exclusion error and inclusion error, but holding the total program budget fixed, also changes the amount given. Figure 4B shows this other aspect of the tradeoff, graphing the level of cash transfers disbursed per beneficiary under Indonesia’s BLT program and Peru’s Juntos program under different targeting schemes, as defined by different levels of the cutoff income c. The transfer level to eligible households steeply falls as you allow more people into the program. Again, the universal basic income can be thought of as the rightmost extreme point, with zero exclusion error and the smallest per-capita transfer for a given budget.

1. Introduction In recent years there is a heated debate on the desirability of Basic Income as a future device for substituting traditional welfare, which continues to be implemented by governments in all countries. In fact, experiments for Basic Income were performed in Canada, Finland, India and Namibia (and proposed also in Switzerland). Recently, Spain has accelerated the implementation of such a system (called "minimum vital income3") in order to cope with the consequences of the Covid 19 crisis, which created in the short run a situation of poverty for many families during the months of economic inactivity, that was imposed in order to avoid contagion. According to the Spanish government's decision, the basic income is transferred to eligible families starting in June 2020. In the background of this proposal, we are witnessing a process of substitution of workers by the use of machines – following the growth process that characterizes modern economies. In a situation where growth enhances the substitution of unskilled workers by machines, it would be desirable to adjust ex-ante the welfare system, in order to gradually cope with increasing unemployment of older workers, as observed in many countries.4 The means tested Basic Income proposal claims for a transfer that will be guaranteed to low-income workers; in such situation this income would allow individuals that confront difficulties for becoming skilled to have decent living, and thus improving social welfare under the new technological environment. Paradoxically, the "machines instead of workers" phenomenon occurs in a period in which more governments are implementing the Earned Income Tax Credit as a policy tool, which actually curtails disincentives for non-participation of the Working Poor and consequently it depresses unskilled wages. Such an expansion in the use of this tool, in a world where machines substitute workers, represents substantial trade-offs in terms of policy, and calls for an analysis that allows assessing the comparative advantage of Basic Income programs against traditional welfare. Since the General Basic Income program has been rejected by most economists (as explained below), it is important to check whether its relevant substitute – a means-tested Basic Income – is the right remedy under the new situation. In particular, policy-makers are interested to know whether under increasing inequality a means-tested Basic Income system produces a policy option with higher social utility compared to traditional welfare. In this paper we deal with this basic question. In order to do so we use a standard framework widely accepted in Public Economics, and we run a substantial number of simulations by mapping results as a function of the most relevant parameters that are traditionally accepted to perform a valuation. In order to evaluate the desirability of a means-tested Basic Income program we distinguish between a Conservative Social Planner, who evaluates the desirability of the proposals by looking only at consumption; and a Liberal Social Planner, who uses a standard framework of utility based on both consumption and leisure. In all scenarios we will concentrate on the short-run implications. 5 2. Literature Survey 2.1 Replacement of workers by machines Acemoglu and Autor (2011) explain the impact of technologically driven growth on labor market developments. The use of machines acts a substitute for routine and non-skilled work, creating the need of re-thinking jobs and doing the needed adjustments for labor supporting government policy. Autor (2014) shows that wages and earnings of lower-skilled workers, particularly men, have stagnated over several decades. While so far technology advance did not cause an apocalyptic increase in unemployment,6 there are other remarkable effects that merit further analysis and adoption of policy measures. One of the effects of "machines replace workers" type of growth is the difficulty for old workers to re-insert themselves into the labor market. Aubert, Caroli and Roger (2006) investigate the relationships between new technologies, innovative workplace practices and the age structure of the workforce in a sample of French firms. They find evidence that the wage bill share of older workers is lower in innovative firms and that the opposite holds for younger workers. This age bias affects both men and women and it is also evidenced within occupational groups. More detailed analysis of employment inflows and outflows shows that new technologies essentially affect older workers through reduced hiring opportunities. This difficulty maybe reflected even in discrimination practices, as studied by Adams (2004). This author shows that this practice is quite common among employers, and it brought about a number of legislation efforts among many US states. The vast literature on the acceleration of the ageing process brought about renewed calls for adopting old proposals for welfare reform, based on the basic income approach. According to this approach individuals should rely on a basic income, which will allow them to cope with this kind of phenomenon from a perspective that assures dealing respectfully with the cost of living. Philosophically inclined advocates of this approach (e.g., Van Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017), emphasize the related value of a Universal Basic Income in increasing human freedom, a difficult concept to express in terms of budget constraints, but nevertheless an important goal. Hoynes and Rothstein (2019) carefully describe the new attempts for renewing the Basic Income initiative, that was accompanied by new pilots implemented at different countries – including Canada, Finland, India and Namibia (and proposed also in Switzerland). Nevertheless, these authors clearly show that the General Basic Income initiative by itself must be rejected, since it is too expensive and implies many inefficiencies. These authors show that there are many issues related to specific groups that may be targeted by welfare and to the incentives associated with the payment schedule, including the phasing out. A clear result that is implied by their analysis is that a relevant alternative shall be based on a restricted version of Basic Income. In this paper we will propose a mean-tested Basic Income approach.

Inequality of opportunity. Inequality across generations. Inequality between women and men. And, of course, inequality of income and wealth . They are all present in our societies and—unfortunately— in many countries they are growing.

The good news is we have tools to address these issues, provided we have the will to do so. Despite the political difficulty of implementing reforms the payoffs for growth and productivity are worth the effort.

Educational literature has demonstrated the pedagogical potential of incorporating the notion of structural violence in the classroom. The following studies illustrate the value when educators embrace it either as a theoretical stance to select and frame knowledge or as curriculum content developed in tandem with students.

Studies that account for students’ interpretations of race-based inequalities in the classroom show that the concept of structural violence supports students in situating daily experiences of racial discrimination and the social causes that motivate it historically. This body of research analyzes the interpretations that students of color make of their own reality through learning experiences that prioritize a critical understanding of race-based social inequalities. For example,  draw from an eco-critical perspective—a critical interpretation of  ecological model that situates power differentials at multiple levels—to examine how students design plans for action that target the individual, the family, and broader societal arrangements through a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project. Hope et al. (2014) also combine an eco-critical perspective with YPAR methodologies to explore how Black high school students make sense of racial discrimination in their schools. Both studies highlight structural violence as a productive avenue to historicize exclusionary practices and decode personal experiences of racism and discrimination. In racial literacy workshops,  examine how three young Black women make sense of racism in the United States. Among other points, the study finds that in a space where girls thought and wrote collectively about “power, oppression and privilege” (p. 9), they recognized racism’s historic and systemic dimensions and the direct implications it had over them and people who looked similar to them. In a different educational scenario and through a longitudinal, mixed methods research design with more than 400 adolescents,  reveal that by the end of freshman year, students attending progressive schools with an explicit commitment to social justice ideals demonstrated an increased ability to analyze inequality in relation to race and socioeconomic status. Furthermore, the study shows that students were able to examine the causes of racial inequality, particularly the role of systemic factors in reproducing race-based inequality. Contrastingly, through in-depth interviews with 35 lower secondary school students and a critical discourse analysis of 20 popular textbooks used in the Republic of Ireland,  finds that curricular silences about racism’s systemic nature create the conditions for students to assume racism results from individual attitudes and traits.

Soil erosion can be mitigated using sustainable land management techniques and suitable policy incentives. Arable land, subject to conservation agriculture (CA) worldwide, is estimated to cover 11 to 14% (current study) or ∼1.42 billion hectares globally (20). Compared to a baseline scenario without any soil conservation practices, estimates indicate an overall global soil erosion reduction of about 7.1% under conservation practices (12). The footprint that human activities have left on the world’s soils are tangible (3). Soil erosion also affects nutrient and soil carbon cycling (21). The associated losses of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and organic carbon (22) have shown compromising long-term effects on the local ability of certain soils to meet agricultural production and ecosystem service demands (9). Global consumption of the three main fertilizer nutrients (N, P, and K) used to maintain, or improve, soil fertility is currently growing on a yearly average by 1.5, 2.2, and 2.4%, respectively (23). This comes along with high onsite economic costs for the land users to contain the production losses (12) and important cascading offsite environmental impacts (24). The pressure on fertile soils (9) through an exacerbation of soil erosion and its environmental degradation effects (25) is further strained by 1) the growing population with an estimated peak of 9.4 billion in 2070 (26), 2) the trend toward meat-intensive diets, and 3) a global climate that tends toward a more vigorous hydrological cycle (27, 28) as discussed above. These are all issues policy teams need to deal with. Today, policy makers emphasize the need for an evidence-based approach. This modeling effort forms part of a wider program of work coordinated through the United Nations to inform national policy makers. Soil erosion is closely linked to gross domestic product (GDP) (12), with poorer countries often experiencing the greatest impacts. Hence this effort is designed to provide a globally consistent assessment to help target policy effort. It will inform countries, especially those that are often least able to identify risk, to focus resources to mitigate degradation by erosion most efficiently and effectively. Moreover, the UN endorsed the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) database (29), which contains freely available information on sustainable land management (SLM) practices. By combining the model outputs with WOCAT SLMs, the two resources give decision makers a powerful set of national scale tools to identify water erosion hotspots at appropriate scales and mitigate them locally through intervention planning. While past studies have provided insights into the possible future trends of global soil erosion by water with reference to land use and climate changes (13), they have not offered the resolution for guiding policy intervention. Unique to our study is the attempt to project future changes in soil erosion at the global level using the state-of-the-knowledge harmonized set of land use and climate scenarios developed according to the new SSP-RCP adopted by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This article is a synthesis of UN collaborative effort to tackle this important socioeconomic and environmental challenge; contributing evidence in support of the upcoming UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021 to 2030). Our hope is that this contribution, along with others, will inform and empower decision makers globally to tackle soil threats and develop concerted global and national strategies for soil monitoring, conservation, and restoration. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the UN strategies for soil conservation (30) requires understanding of the location and magnitude of erosion at global scales, now and in the future. Here, we address this challenge, in support of decision-making, by forecasting global changes in soil erosion by water, driven by land use and climate change, until 2070. We analyze mitigation opportunities through current standards of CAand reflect on possible socioenvironmental impacts related to future changes in water erosion. We also discuss the limits of our approach, quantifying the uncertainty of our estimates. To estimate future soil erosion rates, we feed the high-resolution (250 × 250 m) RUSLE-based (12) modeling platform Global Soil Erosion Modeling (GloSEM) (SI Appendix, Soil Erosion Modeling) with future projections of land use obtained from the integrated assessment model (IAM) (30) (SI Appendix, Global Land Use/Cover and Future Change) and climate erosivity computed following the approach used in previous continental and global scale studies (18, 31) (SI Appendix, Climate and Future Change). The 250 m pixel resolution reflects land cover at the field scale, capturing the emergent mosaic of land use that facilitates or mitigates erosion processes. Multiple land use and climate scenarios, following three Representative Concentration Pathways (IMAGE SSP1-RCP2.6, MESSAGE-GLOBIOM SSP2-RCP4.5, and REMIND-MAGPIE SSP5-RCP8.5, with the numbers referring to the increase in radiative forcing in W·m−2 by 2100 (SI Appendix, Representative Concentration Pathway) greenhouse gas concentration trajectories adopted by the IPCC for its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in 2014, are modeled. Despite some limits and uncertainties addressed in the course of the manuscript, the modeling approach allows for a first estimation of soil displacement by water erosion due to sheet and rill erosion processes (referred to as “soil erosion” in the following technical definition in SI Appendix, Definition of Soil Erosion). These are the dominant processes on upper hill slopes because they are responsible for the largest part of soil displacement on agricultural fields and intensively used grassland (12) and found to be a fair proxy of a wider set of soil erosion processes by water (32). What is the global pattern of soil erosion? The worldwide spatial pattern of estimated soil erosion in 2015 is illustrated in Fig. 1A. Our modeling results suggest that water erosion is a common phenomenon under all climatic conditions across all observed continents. However, the distribution of the spatial soil erosion patterns suggests that soil erosion seems to threaten areas of large-scale reclamation such as major agricultural sectors, especially if it occurs in conjunction with concentrated intense rainfall events (Southern Brazil, Argentina, India, East China, Midwestern United States, Ethiopia, and Mediterranean Europe). Locally, steep slopes and high-relief topography also experience high erosion rates (e.g., Andes, Himalayas, Verkhoyansk Range, and Alaska Mountain Range) together with regions with generally sparse vegetation cover across the year. In the 2015 scenario, we estimate global soil erosion equal to 43+9.2−7 Pg yr−1. The confidence intervals account for the uncertainty of the spatial predictions estimated using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach, the uncertainty of estimating the area under CA the uncertainty related to the effectiveness of the CA practices, and the uncertainty in regional rainfall intensity-kinetic energy relationships. The increase of about ca. 8 Pg yr−1 compared to previous figures reported in Borrelli et al. (12) is a consequence of the increase in the global modeling area (from ∼84.1 to ∼95.5% of the Earth’s land surface) and to a lesser extent to the land use differences derived from adopting the land use data of Hurtt et al. (30) in the current study. This estimate is lower than the figures previously presented in the scientific literature adopting similar modeling approaches, e.g., Yang et al. (13) (ca. 132 Pg yr−1) and Ito (14) (ca. 172 Pg yr−1). It supports the findings reported in the latest reference document (6) of the UN on the status of global soil resources, which indicates a value below 50 Pg yr−1 as a more realistic quantitative figure of global soil erosion by the processes considered (6). Insights in support of the plausibility of our modeling estimates and GloSEM limitations are reported below. We provide further information on Model Performance Evaluation and Limitations of GloSEM below and in the SI Appendix. How does land use impact our estimates? Comparing soil erosion rates according to land use types, we find a decline in the estimates from croplands to forests and other forms of vegetation. Soil erosion rates are in line with field measurements (7, 33). Annual crops covered about 16% of land in 2015 and are estimated to be responsible for 41% of the total predicted soil erosion. Overall, the main agricultural lands (annual crops, permanent crops, and managed pasture) are responsible for 54% (equal to 23.4+5.3−4.1 Pg yr−1) of the total soil erosion. Future scenarios suggest that the effects of land use change may either decrease [SSP1-RCP2.6 (Fig. 1B)] or increase [SSP2-RCP4.5 (Fig. 1C), SSP5-RCP8.5 (Fig. 1D)] soil erosion by 2070. The divergent trends are the result of the possible different human development and societal choices described in the three considered SSP-RCP. The IMAGE SSP1-RCP2.6 scenario, which represents a pathway aiming at limiting the increase of global mean temperature to a maximum of 2 °C by 2100, suggests a possible contraction of the main agricultural land by 2070. The simulation of this land use scenario in GloSEM yields a potential decrease in soil erosion by water of –10% (global soil erosion equal to 38.5+8.6−6.2). The decrease in the simulated global soil erosion (∼4.5 Pg yr−1) is the result of a global reorganization of future lands, which according to the IMAGE SSP1-RCP2.6, will tend toward an overall decrease of agricultural areas in favor of an increase in forest and seminatural vegetation areas (SI Appendix, Fig. S1A). The annual crops and managed pasture are estimated to decrease globally by ca. 0.9 and 2.7 million km2 (equal to −2.9 and −2.4 Pg yr−1 of soil erosion, respectively) under the SSP1-RCP2.6 scenario, whereas the permanent crops follow a different trend with a potential increase estimated at 1.3 million km2 (+0.2 Pg yr−1). This scenario indicates a possible reduction of the share of soil erosion in agricultural land from ∼54% in 2015 to ∼48% in 2070. By contrast, the share of soil erosion in agricultural land increases to 56% and 59% under the MESSAGE-GLOBIOM SSP2-RCP4.5 and REMIND-MAGPIE SSP5-RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively. The MESSAGE-GLOBIOM SSP2-RCP4.5 is a low stabilization scenario that stabilized radiative forcing at 4.5 W/m2 (∼650 ppm CO2-equivalent) before 2100. Under the SSP2-RCP4.5 scenario, soil erosion by water would experience a slightly increased estimate at +2% (global soil erosion equal to 43.9+9.1−6.8), mostly driven by the expansion of annual crops estimated at 2.1 million km2 (+2.6 Pg yr−1). This increase is partially compensated for by the resulting contraction of the managed pasture (−1.2 Pg yr−1) and nonagricultural lands (−0.5 Pg yr−1). Geographically, the SSP2-RCP4.5 shows some mixed trends (SI Appendix, Fig. S1B). Major drivers of the increase can be found in Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, some parts of Eastern Asia, and South America. The last scenario considers very high greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions (REMIND-MAGPIE SSP5-RCP8.5) and yields a possible notable increase in future soil erosion by water of +10% (global soil erosion equal to 47.3+9.5−7.3). The overall increase of soil erosion by water is estimated to be ∼4.3 Pg yr−1, primarily associated with substantial increases in agricultural areas in Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, India, Myanmar, and some districts of China. The land use conditions reported by the SSP5-RCP8.5 scenario (SI Appendix, Fig. S1C) for sizable agricultural districts in North America, Europe, and Russia would result in a lack of erosion reduction that characterizes the scenario SSP1-RCP2.6, and to a lesser extent in the SSP2-RCP4.5 scenario. What is the combined effect of future land use and climate projections? The modeling results (Fig. 2 A and B) suggest that climate change is the major driver of the change in soil erosion. The combined land use and climate simulations show a potential substantial increase in average soil erosion totaling +30% (SSP1-RCP2.6), +51% (SSP2-RCP4.5), and +66% (SSP5-RCP8.5). Quantitatively, 56.1+20.6−16.4, 64.8+28.5−21.4, and 71.6+32.5−24.7 Pg yr−1 are predicted for the SSP1-RCP2.6, SSP2-RCP4.5, and SSP5-RCP8.5 scenarios. The wider confidence intervals are related to the error propagation accounting for the variability of future climate projections of the 14 GCMs used to assess future rainfall erosivity (Fig. 3) and the set of uncertainties already considered in the 2015 scenario. These large confidence intervals associated with future climate projections reflect the higher uncertainty of these estimates. The multiscenario comparison suggests that although future land use changes can notably affect global soil erosion processes through the expansion or contraction of croplands, a global climate potentially moving toward more vigorous hydrological cycles would be acting as a major driver of future increases in soil erosion (Fig. 4). All SSP-RCP climate scenarios processed in the Gaussian process regression (GPR) model (SI Appendix, Climate and Future Change) indicate possible substantial increases in future rainfall erosivity following similar spatial patterns but different intensities (Fig. 2 and SI Appendix, Fig. S2). In absolute terms, the greatest increases occur in areas with tropical climates. Countries in temperate latitudes and with subtropical climates, however, would not be spared by increases of climate erosivity and experience increase peaks up to 50%. In these climatic zones, substantial increases might interest sectors of Eastern North America, Central and Northern Europe, Middle East, and North and East Asia. This provides important insight for policy makers identifying hotspots and trying to mitigate land degradation around the globe. What are the key findings for policy makers? Article 1 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), ratified in March 2020 by 197 countries, identifies soil erosion as a primary cause of land degradation, which, in turn, contributes to poverty and inequality through its negative effects on agriculture, food security, and ecosystems (34). Scientific evidence suggests that global warming has already increased global economic inequality (35) and influenced immigration waves (36). The remarkable increases predicted in the combined future land use and climate change scenarios could have a wide range of negative effects at global, regional, and country levels for which this strategic analysis is intended, and not the field or catchment scale. The first and most obvious consideration emerging from this analysis is the possible exacerbation of the climatic conditions, which could substantially increase global soil erosion (+30%) already in the low GHG emission scenario (SSP1-RCP2.6). A climate-induced increase in soil erosion, as indicated by our findings, with associated land degradation and loss of key ecosystem services (9), would pose a serious threat to the achievement of a large set of targets defined by the UN strategy with the SDGs. This is particularly true for achieving 1) a land degradation neutral world by 2030 (Goal 15; Target 15.3); 2) maintaining soil quality for achieving food security (Goal 2); 3) ensuring availability and sustainable management of water resources (Goal 6); as well as 4) ending poverty (SDG 1); 5) reducing inequality (SDG 10); and 6) taking action to combat global warming (SDG 13).

Are the U.S. and Europe suffering from more than the aftermath of a major financial crisis? Might they be stuck in an unusual and prolonged equilibrium, in which frustratingly slow economic growth is the norm? These are the crucial questions addressed in a new e-book from the Center for Economic Policy Research that I would recommend to policy makers, academics and investors alike. Back in 2009, when I was working at the investment company Pimco, my colleagues and I argued that economic growth in the West would fail to bounce back sharply, as it typically does after a crisis-induced downturn. Instead, Western economies would face unusually sluggish growth and persistently high unemployment. We called it the “new normal.” The notion was initially dismissed by many as “unrealistic” and then as too “fatalistic.” Now the idea is being reinforced in a major way under the moniker “secular stagnation” -- brought to public awareness by the Harvard University economist Larry Summers. In the book, the CEPR brings together respected economists from different schools of thought -- including Summers, Paul Krugman and Barry Eichengreen -- to discuss the various possible explanations, which tend to involve three elements: Structural headwinds from aging populations, poor infrastructure, heavy debt burdens, slow productivity growth and inequality; Demand that is poorly distributed around the world and in many cases inadequate as people channel money toward paying down debt instead of spending; and A "sclerosis" effect in the labor market as persistent unemployment erodes skills and youth joblessness threatens to create a lost generation. One disturbing finding is that policy measures such as central-bank stimulus may be ineffective in simultaneously delivering high growth, robust job creation, price stability and financial soundness. As Summers puts it, if the macroeconomic goals are attained, "there is likely to be a price paid in terms of financial stability.” Given the enormous stakes for current and future generations, the book rightly argues that serious thinking should be devoted to developing alternative policies. These involve pro-growth initiatives such as investing in education and infrastructure -- ideas that have broad support among economists but have been stymied by political dysfunction. A second part looks at more controversial proposals for economic rethinks and institutional revamps, such as increasing central banks' inflation targets or raising the retirement age. Even today, there are people who believe that Western economies are suffering just from flesh wounds. Others feel that the ongoing period of gradual healing will prove sufficient to achieve economic liftoff, supported by the steadfast policies of central banks. Only a minority believe that something more worrisome may be in play, which is why the CEPR's contribution is so important. Hopefully, by demonstrating why new economic thinking is needed, the book will raise awareness and catalyze innovative analysis. In any case, the work is extremely relevant to markets, where much of today’s pricing seems to assume that the old thinking is still valid.

The ‘struggle for recognition’ is fast becoming the paradigmatic form of political conflict in the late twentieth century. Demands for ‘recognition of difference’ fuel struggles of groups mobilized under the banners of nationality, ethnicity, ‘race’, gender, and sexuality. In these ‘post-socialist’ conflicts, group identity supplants class interest as the chief medium of political mobilization. Cultural domination supplants exploitation as the fundamental injustice. And cultural recognition displaces socioeconomic redistribution as the remedy for injustice and the goal of political struggle. That, of course, is not the whole story. Struggles for recognition occur in a world of exacerbated material inequality—in income and property ownership; in access to paid work, education, health care and leisure time; but also more starkly in caloric intake and exposure to environmental toxicity, hence in life expectancy and rates of morbidity and mortality. Material inequality is on the rise in most of the world’s countries—in the United States and in Haiti, in Sweden and in India, in Russia and in Brazil. It is also increasing globally, most dramatically across the line that divides North from South. How, then, should we view the eclipse of a socialist imaginary centred on terms such as ‘interest’, ‘exploitation’, and ‘redistribution’? And what should we make of the rise of a new political imaginary centred on notions of ‘identity’, ‘difference’, ‘cultural domination’, and ‘recognition’? Does this shift represent a lapse into ‘false consciousness’? Or does it, rather, redress the culture-blindness of a materialist paradigm rightfully discredited by the collapse of Soviet Communism? Neither of those two stances is adequate, in my view. Both are too wholesale and un-nuanced. Instead of simply endorsing or rejecting all of identity politics simpliciter, we should see ourselves as presented with a new intellectual and practical task: that of developing a critical theory of recognition, one which identifies and defends only those versions of the cultural politics of difference that can be coherently combined with the social politics of equality. In formulating this project, I assume that justice today requires both redistribution and recognition. And I propose to examine the relation between them. In part, this means figuring out how to conceptualize cultural recognition and social equality in forms that support rather than undermine one another. (For there are many competing conceptions of both!) It also means theorizing the ways in which economic disadvantage and cultural disrespect are currently entwined with and support one another. Then, too, it requires clarifying the political dilemmas that arise when we try to combat both those injustices simultaneously. My larger aim is to connect two political problematics that are currently dissociated from one other. For only by articulating recognition and redistribution can we arrive at a critical-theoretical framework that is adequate to the demands of our age. That, however, is far too much to take on here. In what follows, I shall consider only one aspect of the problem. Under what circumstances can a politics of recognition help support a politics of redistribution? And when is it more likely to undermine it? Which of the many varieties of identity politics best synergize with struggles for social equality? And which tend to interfere with the latter? In addressing these questions, I shall focus on axes of injustice that are simultaneously cultural and socioeconomic, paradigmatically gender and ‘race’. (I shall not say much, in contrast, about ethnicity or nationality.footnote1) And I must enter one crucial preliminary caveat: in proposing to assess recognition claims from the standpoint of social equality, I assume that varieties of recognition politics that fail to respect human rights are unacceptable even if they promote social equality.footnote2 Finally, a word about method: in what follows, I shall propose a set of analytical distinctions, for example, cultural injustices versus economic injustices, recognition versus redistribution. In the real world, of course, culture and political economy are always imbricated with one another; and virtually every struggle against injustice, when properly understood, implies demands for both redistribution and recognition. Nevertheless, for heuristic purposes, analytical distinctions are indispensable. Only by abstracting from the complexities of the real world can we devise a conceptual schema that can illuminate it. Thus, by distinguishing redistribution and recognition analytically, and by exposing their distinctive logics, I aim to clarify—and begin to resolve—some of the central political dilemmas of our age. My discussion proceeds in four parts. In section one, I conceptualize redistribution and recognition as two analytically distinct paradigms of justice, and I formulate ‘the redistribution–recognition dilemma’. In section two, I distinguish three ideal-typical modes of social collectivity in order to identify those vulnerable to the dilemma. In section three, I distinguish between ‘affirmative’ and ‘transformative’ remedies for injustice, and I examine their respective logics of collectivity. Lastly, I use these distinctions, in section four, to propose a political strategy for integrating recognition claims with redistribution claims with a minimum of mutual interference.

Introduction and Definitions The concept of social welfare refers broadly to the resources and opportunities people need to lead satisfying and productive lives (Midgley & Livermore, 2009). Virtually everything the government does affects social welfare, from tax and national defense to education and healthcare policy, but so does government inaction; that is, the failure to respond to human need (DiNitto & Johnson, 2016). More narrowly, definitions of social welfare policy focus on policies and programs that provide income assistance and social services to those in need. In the United States, with its tradition of federalism or shared government, social welfare policy is made at local, state, and national levels. Policy is made by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government in the form of laws, executive orders and administrative regulations, and court decisions. A broad view of social welfare policy also recognizes that corporations as well as nonprofit and for-profit social service agencies make policies that affect the well-being of those they serve and the broader community and therefore have social implications. Many of today’s social welfare policies address basic human needs such as food, housing, healthcare, and employment, and many of them have roots in the New Deal programs of the 1930s, which were responses to the Great Depression. The civil unrest of the 1960s, the “Great Recession” of 2008, and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 have also brought about social policy responses. Policies, including social welfare policies, rest on who has the power to make policy and how they conceptualize and respond to human need. Poverty, unemployment, lack of healthcare and housing, and child maltreatment have been targets of social welfare policies, but the forces that vie to influence policy often view these problems differently. The same is true for policies that affect the civil rights of people who have been disenfranchised, such as women, people of color, sexual minorities, and people with disabilities. Social workers, with their intimate knowledge of human needs, influence policy by helping to define social problems and develop corresponding policy responses. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and its policy and political arms engage in the policy process, and the 2013 program Grand Challenges for Social Work, initiated by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (2021), is a major response of the social work profession to addressing human needs in contemporary society. To meet human needs, conservatives (sometimes called neoliberals) have generally supported “residual,” means-tested, time-limited social welfare policies and services, whereas liberals have argued for “universal” or “institutional” social welfare policies that provide assistance to citizens as communal rights. Universal social insurance programs (primarily the Social Security retirement and disability programs and Medicare, which focus largely on helping older people) have become part of the fabric of the U.S. social welfare system. However, institutional social welfare policies adopted by other countries that can meet needs across the lifespan have never received broad political support in the United States; instead, residual programs providing limited assistance to those regarded as having genuine need have been favored (Patterson, 2000). Socially constructed norms strongly influence how social issues are defined. Traditions of public debate and discourse encourage interest groups to influence the definition of social problems and lobby for policies that will advantage their members. Sometimes social issues are redefined in the policy arena, such as in the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, which allowed for government financing of healthcare programs for certain populations. Before the passage of this legislation, the U.S. Congress had largely rejected the federal government’s involvement in such programs. Sometimes it is the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court rather than the 535 members of the U.S. Congress who resolve policy conflicts. For example, the Court’s 1896 “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson defined policies regarding race for decades, but in 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, the court ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” (DOCSTeach, n.d., p. 11). Debates about the meaning of “family” and “marriage” also exemplify how social policies, such as the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, may enforce specific norms and delegitimize behavior deemed inappropriate by those who hold power. The federal government and state legislatures clashed over the meaning of marriage and whether state recognition of same-sex marriage, also labeled “marriage equality,” violated federal policy until 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationally in Obergefell v. Hodges (Street Law, Inc., n.d.). U.S. history is rife with abuses of indigenous people and those brought as slaves and their successors who were denied the same rights as Whites, leaving a legacy of social and economic disparities. In the current social policy environment, some experts believe that corporate and business sectors have become so powerful that they dominate the policy process, making government (the president, Congress) less responsive to the social welfare needs of all but the wealthiest (Stiglitz, 2012). For example, opening public lands to oil, timber, and mineral corporations can have devastating effects for people and environments if appropriate safeguards are not in place (Gore, 2007). The dynamics of the competitive, globalized marketplace have adversely affected the industrial U.S. work force as corporations downsized, disappeared, or moved operations to other countries. The well-being of the American middle class has been affected by loss of purchasing power and reduced opportunities for upward social mobility. Tax legislation favoring the wealthiest Americans has exacerbated income inequality. The structural obstacles to social advancement faced by those with few economic resources and those who are targets of systemic discrimination remain numerous. The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and racial protests in 2020 magnified these disparities. Discrimination can take many forms. For example, in 1941, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II, discrimination against people of Japanese heritage resulted in the internment of Japanese Americans in camps for fear they might act against the United States. Survivors of internment eventually received meager reparations. Recently, Asian Americans again became targets of violence over beliefs about the origins of COVID-19. The early 21st century in the United States was marked by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and U.S. involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the wake of these events, the civil rights of Muslims in the United States were threatened, and more resources were allocated to national defense and homeland security. Given the range and importance of policy choices, social welfare competes with all other choices for attention and resources. Conservatives often oppose policies and programs directed at public social welfare provision as ineffective and inappropriate interference in the marketplace, and, at least since the Reagan administration, as causing dependency. Social policies that transferred and redistributed income from the wealthy to those who are poor, such as programs assisting women with young children struggling at the margins, have been harshly criticized and their recipients demonized. Since George W. Bush’s administration, efforts have been made to alter the structure of the Social Security system, which is the most universal and effective U.S. social welfare program for reducing poverty. In the United States, groups such as the Poor People’s Campaign work to maintain a focus on meeting needs as social welfare policy faces continuous challenges. However, during the latter part of the 20th century, as political parties continued to debate how to promote overall economic growth, solutions to poverty and inequality largely faded from the public policy agenda (DiNitto & Johnson, 2016). The economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the deaths of Blacks at the hands of police shed new light on these issues. Joseph R. Biden’s administration sought to address these issues by appointing a cabinet marked by racial and gender diversity and supporting legislation such as a new COVID relief package called the American Rescue Plan. This legislation provided stimulus checks to individuals and families, extended unemployment benefits, increased subsidies to help Americans afford health insurance, and aided small businesses, among other provisions. Biden also accelerated the pace of administering COVID-19 vaccinations so the country could return to normalcy. While many of the plan’s provisions were short-term solutions to address the pandemic, Biden also hoped to achieve longer-term solutions that liberals or progressives identified as necessary to reduce income and wealth disparities. These proposals include a $15 federal minimum hourly wage; an increase in taxes for the wealthy to support free prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds, 2 years of free community college education, and paid medical and family leave; an extension of tax credits included in the plan; and programs to help Blacks close the homeownership gap. Philosophical and Ideological Underpinnings of U.S. Social Welfare Policy The notion of citizenship carries specific rights and obligations. Individualism, personal liberty, and the rights of persons to pursue activities freely and without excessive governmental intrusion are hallmarks of U.S. political philosophy that inform policymaking. Political and social conservatives support market-oriented, limited government and private activities to promote social well-being and social welfare for those who are poor. Accordingly, conservatives support social welfare policies through tax spending initiatives that focus on the private social support systems such as homeownership, small business assistance, and other programs that tend to distribute wealth upwards. Liberals also support many such initiatives. Recognizing that social conditions often limit people’s ability to access opportunities that can increase self-sufficiency, liberals also promote public social programs that offer direct support to those who are economically disadvantaged, including the country’s working poor. These programs include Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly the Food Stamp Program), and others that provide either direct cash or in-kind assistance and distribute wealth downward (Faricy, 2015). Both liberals and conservatives support the largest cash assistance program for lower-income workers: The Earned Income Tax Credit, which conservatives endorse because it is based on recipients’ employment and liberals endorse because it provides significant cash payments to lower-income earners.