(Policy profile forthcoming)
Minimum income guarantees aim to ensure that no individual falls below a socially defined income floor, thereby preventing extreme deprivation and reducing insecurity across the life course. In many countries, existing social assistance schemes are fragmented, heavily means-tested and increasingly conditional upon willingness-to-work requirements, and set at levels below poverty thresholds, leaving significant gaps in both coverage and adequacy. Evidence shows that even where such schemes exist, non-take-up rates frequently exceed 30–50 % and can reach far higher levels, meaning that a large proportion of eligible individuals never receive the support to which they are legally entitled. Complex eligibility rules, intrusive documentation requirements, digital barriers, stigma, and distrust of public institutions prevent effective access. Non-take-up however is not an individual failure: it is a design flaw that undermines the right to social security and weakens the poverty-reduction impact of public spending, can impede social and employment inclusion and can contribute to escalating social problems (over-indebtedness, poor mental and physical health).
The policy proposal consists of establishing a legally enforceable minimum income floor, in line with ILO Recommendation No. 202 on Social Protection Floors. Support levels should be adequate and linked to relative poverty lines or reference budgets, and ensuring access through simple, dignified, and accessible procedures. In high-income countries, this requires consolidating fragmented assistance schemes into a coherent rights-based framework, indexing benefits to the cost of living, and introducing automatic stabilisers that expand during downturns. Particular attention must be given to reducing non-take-up through proactive outreach, simplification of application procedures, accessible appeals mechanisms, and where appropriate, carefully designed automation of benefits that does not exclude those lacking formal registration or digital access. While an increasing number of countries have benefits that can only be applied to online, people in atypical situations often find themselves excluded from digital procedures, including automation. In middle- and lower-income countries, priority may be given to expanding basic income floors through tax-financed transfers and progressively integrating informal workers and excluded groups. Across contexts, excessive conditionality and punitive compliance mechanisms should be avoided, as they increase stigma, administrative complexity and exclusion errors.
Minimum income guarantees serve as a foundational security mechanism that delinks survival from continuous labour market attachment or aggregate economic expansion. By reducing non-take-up and ensuring effective coverage, they transform social protection from a nominal entitlement on paper into a real and accessible right in practice. They reduce material deprivation directly while strengthening individuals’ capacity to engage in education, care, community participation, and ecological transition activities. Moreover, by restoring trust in public institutions and treating income support as a right rather than charity, they reinforce social cohesion and democratic legitimacy. When combined with universal basic services and inclusive labour and care policies, minimum income guarantees form part of a broader architecture that shifts welfare systems from compensating market failure toward guaranteeing essential needs and human dignity.
