What’s all this about a public income insurance scheme?
The logic for an income insurance scheme was brought into policy debate again (this isn’t the first time) by the pandemic.
As several tens of thousands of workers were let go from travel and hospitality sectors a temporary safety net was provided at a level above that for normal unemployment benefits.
That brought both praise and criticism from both the left and the right. Perhaps the best argument in favor of such schemes is simply that events such as pandemics are hard to insure – social goods that are hard to provide for in another way are usually the proper realm of government. Having said that, these proposals include income cover not just for mass redundancy, but the more specific types, and, for loss of income due to sickness.
Strong arguments exist that some contingencies should be covered by savings.
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