‘Stark disparity’ in protections offered to different groups during COVID-19 crisis threatens a growth in existing inequalities, warns IPPR

Highlighting the social risks that people now face in the UK, IPPR launches a programme to 'reimagine' a future welfare state

The 'stark disparity' in protections offered to different groups during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis threatens a growth in existing inequalities, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has warned. 

In 'The decades of disruption: New social risks and the future of the welfare state', the IPPR highlights that the economic shock resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic follows a great 'risk shift' experienced by people in the UK over recent decades, where the costs of ill health, unemployment, becoming a parent or having a disability, have increasingly been borne by individuals, rather than by employers or the state.

In addition, while acknowledging that government financial assistance has been the decisive factor in protecting businesses and livelihoods in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, the IPPR suggests that it has nevertheless fallen short. In particular, the IPPR highlights that -

• those already in employment are entitled to 80 per cent of their earnings, up to £2,500 per month, from government schemes - the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme or the Self-employment Income Supplement Scheme - while those who are not eligible for the schemes, lose their job or are already unemployed, are forced to claim universal credit, which had an average pre-COVID-19 crisis value of £720 per month; and
• the increase in unpaid care hours being provided in the crisis – largely by women – has been entirely absent from the welfare and economic response.

As a result, launching a programme to 'reimagine' the welfare state that might emerge from the current crisis, the IPPR argues that - if the welfare state is to evolve - five paradigm shifts are needed - 

• from a frozen to a 'future-proof' welfare state - moving away from the UK’s ‘liberal welfare regime’ towards one which collectivises risk and shares opportunity, with greater universal provision;
• from consolidation to investment - rejecting austerity and making a shift towards investing for growth and progressive taxation, and strengthening social security and public services to address ‘new social risks';
• from economic growth to a broader concept of wellbeing - prioritising not just economic growth, but also a wider set of social goals including social connection, health, and placing a higher value on the role care (both paid and unpaid) plays in our society;
• from individual to collective solutions - recognising the collective nature of social risks and the need for compulsory social insurance (risk pooling) to manage them; and
• from transactions to relationships - moving beyond markets and bureaucracies as a way of delivering public services towards one where empowered public servants and citizens work together to solve local problems.

However, the IPPR cautions that - 

'Escaping from path dependence will only happen if there is a strong social and political consensus for change, with the support of coalitions formed across economic, demographic and political faultlines.'

For more information, see The decades of disruption: New social risks and the future of the welfare state from ippr.org