Link Seminar April 2023: Business and in work benefits with Mickey Conn
- Date
- Wednesday 19 April 2023, 13:00-14:00
- Location
- Online
Abstract
Many countries provide in-work benefits: payments or reductions in tax liabilities for which a qualifying criterion is being in current employment. They have a long history, and have traditionally been used in order to boost incomes in response to external shocks, such as rapid increases in the cost of living, or individual “risks” that impose additional costs, such as parenthood or disability. In this way, they are used to socialise risk. They also increase income differentials between those out of work and those in work, where otherwise targeted benefits might increase the incomes of unemployed people above those in low-paid work, producing disincentives to moving into employment.
Studies of in-work benefits have focused on the important impacts they have on individuals and families, but business perspectives have been neglected. Some commentators have claimed that they act as a pure subsidy to business, while others contend that they have little or no impact on businesses.
This research takes a historical institutionalist perspective to explore how organised business views in-work benefits, how it responds to them, whether it attempts to influence policy in this area, and whether its views have been taken up by Parliamentarians.
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Meeting ID: 340 696 674 168
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