Social Security Archives | Rethinking Poverty

Social Security

The impact of Basic Income Month

By Rethinking Poverty

03 May 2022

Compass and the Basic Income Conversation have published their report Basic Income Month: The impact of London Solidarity Funds and the case for local basic income schemes. The Basic...

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What will the end of the Universal Credit uplift mean for wellbeing?

By Hannah Ormston

14 Oct 2021

At the Conservative Party Conference last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson remarked that ‘wages are going up faster than before the pandemic began’. These comments were made against the backdrop of...

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The IPCC report and beyond: Talking Points on the state of our planet

By Rethinking Poverty

02 Sep 2021

August is often dubbed the silly season, but this one has been packed with momentous events: the publication of the latest IPCC report, the chaotic exit from Afghanistan, and...

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The road to recovery

By Lydia Prieg

10 Aug 2021

The past year has been extremely difficult for all of us. Over 4 million people in Britain have tested positive for Covid, and over 150,000 people have died with...

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Basic Income: a feasible route to income security? 

By Malcolm Torry

31 Mar 2021

Lack of income security is widely recognised as a major problem – and one that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Could a Basic Income help? And is... Read More

Talking Points: January 2021  

By Rethinking Poverty

04 Feb 2021

With a new lockdown announced on 4 January and schools closed across the country, 2021 got off to a bad start. By 25 January, Gordon Brown was warning that... Read More

Permanent changes to UK’s failing social security system needed

By Holly Barrow

25 Nov 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has once more highlighted that the UK’s social security system is in dire need of reform. Chancellor Rishi Sunak himself seemingly identified its shortcomings, as he... Read More

Universal Basic Income & Universal Basic Services: How can we bring them together?

By Isky Gordon

01 Oct 2020

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is not a new idea but has recently gained some credence, with interest in possible pilot studies shown by the Scottish national government and one... Read More

A radical process leads to radical proposals for a better social security system

By Michael Orton

30 Sep 2020

Readers of Rethinking Poverty are warmly invited to give their views on proposals for a better social security (welfare benefits) system. The proposals are from a project called the... Read More

New times, new welfare attitudes?

By John Hudson, Neil Lunt and Ruth Patrick

12 Aug 2020

As the UK emerges tentatively from lockdown, and the economic and social implications of the crisis start to solidify, there is an inevitable and valid debate about what shape... Read More

Pandemic truths 2: How Covid-19 shone a spotlight on the warped values of our current way of life

By Andrew Webster

23 Jun 2020

‘Perhaps the easiest way of making a town’s acquaintance is to ascertain how the people in it work, how they love, and how they die.’ Albert Camus, The Plague This... Read More

This changes everything

By Neal Lawson

20 Mar 2020

Most of us have experienced nothing like this before. It is strange, forbidding and dislocating to a degree probably only experienced by those alive in the early 1940s. Events... Read More

‘Sorry we missed you’ reveals the sorry state of our society

By Barry Knight

15 Jan 2020

‘I feel in complete shock. At the end I thought my heart had stopped.’ So read a text sent by a friend of mine as she left the cinema... Read More

CLES manifesto sets out how the next government can truly serve people, places and planet

19 Nov 2019

The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) has launched ‘The manifesto for local economies’, setting out a vision for ‘how the next government should create local economies that serve... Read More

Reinventing social services

By Bob Rhodes

18 Sep 2019

As part of its Manifesto for Social Care Reform, the Centre Welfare Reform proposes a radical reinvention of social services and the reintegration and refocusing of social work on... Read More

The big picture

By Fran Bennett

14 Aug 2019

This ‘Poverty and social security: where next?’ blog series has given valuable pointers about what a future government should do to mend social security and tackle poverty over the... Read More

Breaking Ground

By Sally Witcher

23 Jul 2019

How would you design a new social security system from scratch? Not an opportunity that comes along every day, so probably not a question many have devoted time to... Read More

Talking Points: June 2019 

By Rethinking Poverty

09 Jul 2019

This month’s Talking Points reflects on the causes of inequality and puts forward some suggestions for tackling poverty rather than just more ‘bad news’. We also look at the... Read More

The best investment

By Louisa McGeehan

02 Jul 2019

If a future government wants to tackle poverty, its first priority should be child poverty. Growing up in poverty steals away children’s life chances – poorer children are likely... Read More

Building communities for the Scotland we want

By Barry Knight

24 Jun 2019

What follows is the text of a speech given by Barry Knight at a conference of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) on 12 June 2019. The speech... Read More

Major repairs

By Stephen Timms

19 Jun 2019

An incoming Labour government will be confronted with the severe problems currently facing claimants grappling with universal credit. What will the Labour party need to do to put social... Read More

CPAG calls for changes to Universal Credit to reduce child poverty

13 Jun 2019

A new report, Universal credit: what needs to change to reduce child poverty and make it fit for families?, from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), calls for changes to... Read More

Talking Points: May 2019

By Rethinking Poverty

05 Jun 2019

A big story this month is the launch of a new review of inequality in the UK, but will it make a difference? Discussion of the four-day (or shorter)... Read More

Three points to keep in mind when you talk about poverty

By John Veit-Wilson

28 May 2019

Poverty is growing in the UK, and it’s not only that more people are suffering, but the hurts and indignities they suffer are getting worse. Much of this avoidable... Read More

Commanding public confidence

By Claire Ainsley

16 May 2019

For people living in poverty in the UK, the workings of the social security system are too often part of the problem, not part of the solution. People will... Read More

Compass sets out how we can achieve Basic Income for all

27 Mar 2019

Compass, with support from Friends Provident Foundation, have published a new report, Basic Income for All: From Desirability to Feasibility. Authored by Stewart Lansley and Howard Reed, it presents... Read More

Missing Morality

By Reverend Paul Nicolson

26 Mar 2019

I am delighted to make this politically independent contribution to debate the left’s poverty and social security agenda in the 2020s. I work without allegiance to any political party,... Read More

A female face

By Mary-Ann Stephenson

14 Mar 2019

Our social security system is not working. A succession of cuts and changes over the last eight years have left a fifth of the population (more than 14 million people)... Read More

Money and its uses

By Donald Burling

27 Feb 2019

Rethinking Poverty encourages its readers to contribute their thoughts so that we can all engage in developing the society we want. Here we publish an article by Donald Burling... Read More

Universal Credit: the welfare reform pushing people into hardship

By Rachel Gregory

14 Feb 2019

Universal Credit is hailed as the biggest welfare reform since the welfare state was introduced. While support exists for the principles behind its introduction – simplifying the legacy benefits... Read More

Universal basic services – is this the answer to poverty?

By Caroline Hartnell

29 May 2018

‘Focusing on basic services, such as housing, food, communications and transport, is, we conclude, far more effective at driving down the cost of living than spending the same money... Read More

Universal Basic Income – not the answer to poverty

By Chris Goulden

11 May 2018

Universal basic income (UBI), or citizens’ basic income, is one of the ideas put forward in Barry Knight’s book Rethinking Poverty: What makes a good society? as a ‘promising area for... Read More