EAPN has released a new report presenting “Policy Proposals & Recommendations for Member States to tackle-in work poverty” within the framework of the Working Yet Poor project, funded by Horizon 2020.
The purpose of the report is to make general recommendations to Member States on combatting in-work poverty. The Recommendations are based on evidence provided in the WorkYP project, and draw on the European Anti-Poverty Network’s (EAPN) long experience of combating poverty, including in-work poverty.
Key messages
Wages are too low to always keep the households securely out of in-work poverty over the lifecycle. The risk is much higher with lower than full-time annual hours.
Wage-setting, insurance-based and social assistance protective mechanisms provide inadequate levels of replacement income and are not fully inclusive. Low annual hours therefore heighten the risk of in-work poverty, even where hourly wages appear adequate to keep households above the poverty threshold.
Flexible labour markets and non-employee work are undermining universality, solidarity and equity in institutional systems, and shifting the impact of economic risk and uncertainty to workers and to public expenditure, which expands to compensate for many of the consequences of in-work poverty. It is time to refocus institutional systems on quality in work and protection from in-work poverty.
Key features will be:
- reining in flexible and low hours work;
- equalising access to training and upskilling;
- generalising inclusion in adequate minimum wage and collective bargaining systems;
- generalising inclusion in social security including insurance-based benefits and social assistance, and
- providing better universal cash transfers.
The aims are to increase hours of work and quality of work and to achieve wages and benefits which are adequate to prevent poverty pay, household monetary poverty (AROP) and severe material deprivation (SMD) according to Eurostat definitions, and which provide budgets that enable decent lives for vulnerable and underrepresented workers and their households.
The report presents the following issues:
- Data and Knowledge
- Wages and coverage by protective systems
- Social Security inclusiveness and protection from poverty
- Flexible and non-employee work
Read & download the full report by clicking here.
Read & download the booklet presenting the key messages by clicking here.
