The thresholds are set high enough it is similar enough to a BI to avoid administration bad offense, but still incentivize participation.

Beyond the question of the participation requirements that a PI should be conditioned upon, there is also the question of whether a PI should be targeted by ‘conditions of circumstance’ (Clasen and Clegg, Reference Clasen, Clegg, Clasen and Siegel2007: 167) or universally paid to everyone. Hiilamo and Komp (Reference Hiilamo and Komp2018) argue that a PI can be compatible with means-testing, although Aktinson’s original proposal saw PI as a substitute for means-tested social assistance but not necesssarily a wholly universal payment. Rather than a payment everyone would receive, he proposed PI as a complementary form of social security in which reformed and expanded social insurance payments would remain the default form of social security for many. In this section we argue that while a PI need not be universal, only ex-post income testing, with relatively high income thresholds, can enable a PI to be administered without stigma.

Atkinson’s key objection to means-testing is that it is applied at a household level, thereby penalising not just the recipients’ efforts but those of his or her family as well. Another important concern is the potential to stigmatise recipients, insofar as residualising welfare through narrow means-testing may symbolically stigmatise claiming benefits as a dependent and impoverished social identity. The process of claiming benefits can itself give rise to what Baumberg (Reference Baumberg2015: 183) term’s ‘claims stigma’ if conditions of conduct and circumstance give rise to a lack of privacy ‘and the feeling of being looked down on by suspicious staff’. This, in turn, can create benefit take-up issues among those who might need welfare the most (Atkinson, Reference Atkinson1996: 68). The force of these concerns will depend on how narrowly eligibility conditions are targeted: whether they are designed to ‘screen in’ only the neediest or to ‘screen out’ only the most affluent. A PI that recognises a wide plurality of participation and which is tapered in line with salary earnings at an individualised, modest-to-high threshold may mitigate these concerns about stigmatisation, while making any PI scheme more affordable and therefore feasible.

This emphasis on the individualisation of payments is one essential feature that a PI shares with a UBI and is an essential prerequisite for economic independence for women. The administrative specificities of how a PI can be implemented as a targeted payment along these lines will need to be determined in each national social security system, although certain Covid-19 income supports such as Ireland’s Pandemic Unemployment Payment demonstrate how eligibility can be assessed ex-post and without navigating invasive administrative hurdles (see Hick and Murphy, Reference Hick and Murphy2021). This is not to underplay the critical importance of resolving these difficult questions; the administrative specificities are closely related to political feasibility. As Wolff (Reference Wolff1998: 97) argues in the context of normative justifications for welfare conditionality more broadly, ‘egalitarians must be concerned not only by a concern for fairness, but also by the idea of respect for all.’ Forms of income support that are ideal from a normative standpoint can only be implemented via administrative systems that preserve recipients’ self-respect. This is especially so for a capabilities-oriented social policy animated by a relational theory of democratic equality. It requires that recipients are not subjected to invasive bureaucratic examinations to determine eligibility and deservingness.