Decent Incomes for All: Improving Policies in Europe

Description: Decent Incomes for All sheds new light on recent poverty trends in the European Union and the corresponding responses by European welfare states. The authors analyze the effect of social and fiscal policies before, during, and after the recent economic crisis, and study the impact of alternative policy packages on poverty and inequality.

Review Quotes: "Poverty might be even more widespread--and differently distributed across countries and household types within the EU--than what appears by the usual 'at risk of poverty' indicator. Exploring different methodological approaches, this book presents a complex view of what happened where before and during the Great Recession, as well as the differential ability of individual countries to protect the poor through their policy choices. The lessons these analyses teach at the substantive and methodological level offer crucial suggestions on how progress might be achieved at the national and EU level in granting a decent income to both workers' and jobless people's households."
-- Chiara Saraceno, PhD, Professor Emerita, WZB Berlin Social Science Center; honorary fellow, Collegio Carlo Alberto, Turin

"With European welfare states under economic pressure, policymakers have taken their eyes off the poverty reduction ball, with the inevitable result that poverty has worsened as social protection provisions have been allowed to erode. This book by some of Europe's leading social policy scholars vividly illustrates how top-quality research can highlight social issues, provide the evidence to better understand them, and point to appropriate policy responses. It is a timely reminder of the important role that a decent income safety net can play in promoting well-being and setting the social foundations for sustainable economic prosperity."
--Peter Saunders, PhD, DipEcThy, Professor, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney; President, Foundation for International Studies on Social Security