What about guaranteeing a basic job instead of guaranteeing a minimum income? This is a recurrent and much-debated question in social protection, which is now informed by new evidence from Austria. Since 2020, the town of Marienthal is offering a universal guarantee public or private job to every resident unemployed for more than 12 months. Jobs are paid at least the minimum wage (making income higher than under social assistance/insurance payments), with participation voluntary/free of sanctions and duration until 2024. Jobs were generated in carpentry, renovation, public gardening, and elderly care – and some projects were created by participants themselves (e.g., supporting communal public services like local schools and kindergartens). An evaluation of the program by Kasy and Lehner found a range of impacts (see figure above), with one of the estimates indicating a reduction in long-term unemployment by about 1.5 percentage points, down to less than 1% of the working age population. Importantly, not only participants’ incomes rose, but they had also more meaningful interactions with others, felt more valued, and more connected to the community (h/t Lukas Lehner).
More on high-income contexts: a rich brief by the OECD documents how countries are responding to inflation. Approaches have favored broad eligibility as opposed to narrower targeting (about $190B vs $130B respectively, see figure 2, p.4). The brief also sheds light on preexisting challenges – for example, limited indexation of benefits (see box 1 on US and Poland, p.6) and how between 10-45% of transfers go to the richest quintile (25% on average). Among the conclusions, it is argued that “… [u]nlike price regulation and subsidies, income support maintains price signals that are needed for easing supply bottlenecks and rebalancing consumption towards greener energy sources”.
From inflation to the pandemic: Palomo et al have a review of Covid19-related social protection registration and payment practices in Latin America and the Caribbean. So much to like about the paper, including for example the helpful tables on coverage and adequacy stats (p.14-19), or table 3 (p.29) laying out cases where high coverage was achieved with high social registry coverage (e.g., Argentina and Peru) and without it (e.g., El Salvador and Haiti). See also the handy table on different forms of payment system (p.31).
Bonus on pandemic responses, this time focusing on Cambodia: a report by Chhoeung et al documents key challenges encountered – for example related to the unprecedented scale of the cash transfers program and outdated information in the IDPoor database – and discusses the remedial actions during the crisis, including for example poverty self-assessments (which still entailed follow-up physical verifications, see p.8).
Let’s stay in the region: what does a religious perspective tell us about a cash transfer program? Rohmi examine Indonesia’s PKH in light of “Islamic economics”. It finds that the program, which was evaluated in Pringsewu Regency, Lampung, fulfilled several criteria, like the criteria of justice, responsibility, and takaful (redistribution) – as well as “right on target, right in number, and appropriate in use”. However, it didn’t meet the criteria of timeliness due to delays in distribution.
More on East Asia: a report by Karacsony et al discusses data and interoperability issues in Fiji’s social protection system. The note is fascinating as it not only examines the country’s interoperability ecosystem (e.g., see crisp summary on p.14), but it also synthesizes and array of global practices on the matter – for example, box 1 (p.5-7) and box 2 (p.9-10) are really nicely structured (h/t Sandor Karacsony).
Moving to Africa, Valli et al evaluate a “cash plus” program for agropastoralists in Somalia. The full intervention included cash transfers and an agriculture package adapted to different livelihood zones. The latter was delivered as an e-voucher through local traders and included seed kits for cereals, pulses and assorted vegetables, as well as farm tools and storage bags (a training was also included). The evaluation then compared three groups – those receiving inputs only, cash only, and cash plus inputs. Main result? Input-only recipients increased asset wealth and livestock, while the cash plus inputs showed better food security outcomes (food consumption scores).
Let’s continue discussing food security: Mncube et al investigate the relationship between cash transfers and food security in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal’s province. They show that food security hinged on access to cash transfers, finance, agricultural training and other factors. They also show that older household heads had a larger probability of getting transfers, and so did larger households. Bonus on South Africa: a compilation of seven briefs by IEJ unbundles key issues on universal basic income in the country, including discussing its rationale, financing, empowerment, gender, health, jobs effects and targeting.
Two resources on child-sensitive programing: in neighboring Lesotho, Carraro and Ferrone found that the Child Grant Programme reduced multidimensional deprivations among children living in labor-constrained female-headed households. And Castillo and Marinho document the profound negative impact that the pandemic had on various dimensions of children’s wellbeing in Latina America, and set out recommendations for social protection (see p.35-39).
Shifting to climate, what is needed for smallholder farmers to better manage climatic risks? A blog by Dahlet argues that “… [a]ccess to adequate social protection in rural areas must be massively and rapidly expanded” (h/t Marco Knowles). And this is a great resource: FAO has a free, virtual course on managing climate risks through social protection.
Acting early in crises is good economics; but how to finance anticipatory action? Bharadwaj and Mitchell lay out four options for risk financing of social protection, including insurance-linked anticipatory responses; debt support based on thresholds; global taxation regimes; and carbon markets and resilience bonds. Bonus: a brief lays out WFP’s perspective on anticipatory responses.
More on crises, but from a displacement angle: Lowe et al devised a conceptual framework for connecting humanitarian assistance and social protection in forced displacement. The framework is the result of adapting, reconciling, and integrating various analytical contributions from the literature – see the compact final result on p.36, including contextual factors, actors, options and entry points, and first and second order effects. Bonus: Lowe also has a well-organized compendium on summary theories linking social protection and humanitarian assistance. Double bonus: check out NRC’s perspective unpacking “policy” vs “implementation” of Poland’s assistance to Ukrainian refugees (h/t Larissa Pelham).
And what about elderly populations? A brief by HelpAge contains recommendations for strengthening the understanding of older people’s rights and needs within humanitarian responses and the wider humanitarian system (h/t Pip O’Keefe).
Benchmarking! A piece by Christiano reflects on six CEGA-sponsored cash benchmarking studies. What is benchmarking about? Basically, it is meant to “… developing a profile of what to expect from a given type and size of cash transfer for certain groups of people. This profile, which would naturally become more reliable as the evidence base grew, could serve as a benchmark for traditional aid and inform consequential funding and programming decisions”.
Speaking of comparisons… the “SPEED” database, or “SP Expenditure and Evaluation Database” for the Europe and Central Asia region, is online with social assistance, insurance and labor market indicators across countries and over time. Enjoy! (h/t Cem Mete).
Let’s step back and look at the historical roots of today’s social protection: Davy traces the factors that shaped social protection trajectories in countries like China and Brazil. In particular, the study/chapter examines how the Bismarckian approach to social protection was transplanted and ideas spread. The ILO played a particularly prominent role in facilitating the transmission of such thinking in the 1920s and 1930s. More generally, “… Southern welfare emerged against the backdrop of Northern welfare and involved a process of constant testing and weighing of Northern ideas against the local concepts and the local interests”. And in India, Sen discusses the evolution from “growth-based welfare to welfare entitlements”.
More on Brazil: What happens when the minimum wage is raised in a high-informality setting? Engbom and Moser present evidence from Brazil showing that following a nearly 130% increase in the minimum wage over 22 years, about half of the reduction in earning inequality can be attributed to such hike (although effects on employment and output are muted) (h/t Mattias Lundberg).
Oh, if there is still any doubt, a paper on Brazil by Maciel and Duarte shows that cash transfers are spent wisely!