The Journal of Poverty and Social Justice provides a unique blend of high-quality research, policy and practice from leading authors in the field related to all aspects of poverty and social exclusion. The journal has changed its name to reflect its wider scope and has growing international coverage.    Content spans a broad spectrum of poverty-related topics including social security, employment and unemployment, regeneration, housing, health, education and criminal justice, as well as issues of ethnicity, gender, disability and other inequalities as they relate to social justice.

The Journal of Poverty and Social Justice offers high-quality research, policy, and practice from leading authors in the field, addressing all aspects of poverty and social exclusion. The journal has changed its name to reflect its broader scope and is expanding its international coverage. The content covers a wide range of poverty-related topics, including social security, employment and unemployment, regeneration, housing, health, education, and criminal justice, as well as issues of ethnicity, gender, disability, and other inequalities as they relate to social justice.

《Journal of Poverty and Social Justice》期刊提供高质量的研究、政策和实践，涵盖与贫困和社会排斥相关的各个方面，作者均为该领域的领先学者。期刊更名以反映其更广泛的范围，并且国际覆盖面不断扩大。内容涵盖与贫困相关的广泛主题，包括社会保障、就业与失业、城市再生、住房、健康、教育和刑事司法，以及与社会公正相关的种族、性别、残疾和其他不平等问题。

Journal of Poverty and Social Justice

Navigating the context of the Swedish welfare system when unemployed, sick, or disabled is complex and multifaceted as it involves agencies governed by national, regional and municipal decision-making bodies, as well as different legal frameworks. Despite significant structural and organisational barriers, these agencies must collaborate around individual cases. The aim of this article is to gain an understanding of how welfare professionals make sense of the role of inter-agency collaboration when trying to address the support needs of long-term unemployed individuals with disabilities and/or ill-health. Focusing on sensemaking, as a form of knowledge claim, of those who work in frontline or coordinating roles on a local level draws attention to tensions between different institutional logics that are crucial for policy implementation. The analysis presented is based on data from 16 semi-structured interviews with welfare professionals from different agencies working in the same region of southern Sweden. Two key competing logics are highlighted: a work-first logic and a welfare logic. The findings show how welfare professionals seek to navigate through the competing logics by identifying alternative ways of working. By harmonising these logics, trying to fit them together in a hybrid logic, they attempt to find ways of meeting the needs of vulnerable individuals, but without challenging the structure and principles of Sweden’s overarching ‘work-first’ approach to social security.

Tove Samzelius

Rickard Ulmestig

Navigating tricky waters: inter-agency collaboration and competing logics in Swedish welfare provision

 navigating tricky waters: inter-agency collaboration and competing logics in Swedish welfare provision

穿越棘手的水域：瑞典福利供给中的跨机构协作与竞争逻辑

Dutch minimum income support provides a generous social safety net compared to most other European Union (EU) member states but has not been able to structurally reduce poverty. This inadequacy did not come about overnight but is the result of six decades of policy decisions. In this article, we aim to explain the current income shortfalls of people on minimum income support by studying the historical evolution and determinants of the Dutch minimum income scheme. We demonstrate that it has on average maintained a constant level of purchasing power over the period 1980–2023. This fits well with the notion that poverty is of an absolute nature, and that a social minimum should guarantee a stable level of purchasing power. It fits less well with relative or contextual approaches to poverty, and the view that a social minimum should adapt to changing norms when a society grows richer. To uncover the reasons for the growing gap between general prosperity and the minimum income benefit, we decompose it into smaller gaps by illustrating the evolution of prosperity, labour productivity, gross wages, collectively agreed wages, the minimum wage and the minimum income benefit. We show that each of these gaps matters and argue that this provides valuable insights into the structural, institutional and political forces that have shaped Dutch minimum income support since its introduction in 1965. Based on these results, we argue against the current ad hoc measures of the government and in favour of a more structural approach to supporting low-income households.

Benedikt Goderis

Safety net of last resort: the evolution, determinants and adequacy of Dutch minimum income support

最后的安全网：荷兰最低收入支持的演变、决定因素及充足性

The household means test plays an essential role in social assistance schemes worldwide. Consequently, the legal definition of what constitutes a household importantly impacts social outcomes, while also being constantly challenged by the dynamic societal reality of living arrangements. Despite its significance, this ‘household-construct’ has received strikingly little attention among social policy analysts. Our contribution explores this issue through a longitudinal analysis of the household-construct in the Netherlands’ social assistance legislation and parliamentary history. After conceptualising the household means test in view of the literature on targeted and conditional welfare provision, we discuss the importance of demographic developments (diversifying household composition) as a continuous challenge for household means-tested income support. We then provide a longitudinal analysis of the most important legislative changes (and underlying rationales) to the household-notion in the Dutch main social assistance (minimum subsistence) scheme. The results demonstrate that the household means test has gone through considerable alterations over time, largely in response to societal shifts and in recent decades also as an outflow of the welfare conditionality paradigm. At the same time, the fundamental logic of (1) needs-based targeting and (2) needs assessment at the level of household resources (rather than the individual) have remained intact, thereby adhering to the traditional conception of the economic union of marriage and maintenance obligations between partners. The study demonstrates how a systematic examination of legislative documents can provide valuable insights into the complex interrelationships between this specific area of social security policy, the changing social context and social policy paradigms.

Barbara Brink

Maarten Bouwmeester

The household as a constraint on social assistance: analysing the household-construct in the Netherlands’ parliamentary history on social assistance

家庭作为社会援助的限制：分析荷兰社会援助议会历史中的家庭结构

The first section of the landmark Equality Act 2010 has been lying dormant for 14 years. The ‘public sector duty regarding socio-economic inequalities’ – passed by the Labour government in 2010 – was never brought into force in England by the Conservative-led coalition that replaced them. The new Labour government has committed to its resurrection. Drawing on evidence from Scotland and Wales, where the ‘socio-economic duty’ has been in force since April 2018 and March 2021 respectively, this article offers three reflections for policy makers and those who will be tasked with its implementation in England: the promise of its ‘holistic’ incorporation into the Equality Act 2010 of impact assessment processes; the ongoing necessity for support with evidence collection and data sharing; and the duty’s potential as a catalyst for broader organisational change far beyond a strict interpretation of its legal remit. Although (very) far from a panacea, if coupled with well-executed guidance, training and oversight, its commencement could help to encourage greater consideration and transparency of evidence on socio-economic inequalities in key areas of public sector decision making.

Jed Meers

Enacting the socio-economic duty: inequalities of outcome and section 1 Equality Act 2010

履行社会经济责任：结果不平等与2010年《平等法》第1条

"Changing circumstances and new basic premises: turning the affordability and feasibility relationship on its head: a reply to ‘The big tax hikes that make UBI “affordable” could be used to cut poverty in more targeted ways’ by Donald Hirsch 1" published on Feb 2023 by Policy Press.

Howard Robert Reed

Matthew Thomas Johnson

Stewart Lansley

Elliot Aidan Johnson

Graham Stark

Kate E. Pickett

Changing circumstances and new basic premises: turning the affordability and feasibility relationship on its head: a reply to ‘The big tax hikes that make UBI “affordable” could be used to cut poverty in more targeted ways’ by Donald Hirsch1

变化的环境与新的基本前提：颠覆可负担性与可行性关系：对唐纳德·赫希《使全民基本收入“可负担”的大幅增税可以更有针对性地用于减少贫困》一文的回应

In this short article, we call for policy makers, activists and academics to take account of food aesthetics of economically and racially marginalised people – especially women – when understanding and intervening in food distribution. Although it may seem that aesthetics and poverty are mutually exclusive, and somewhat provocative to suggest that food aesthetics, when understood more expansively, aesthetics is an important aspect of domestic food work, as our findings from our research with British Bangladeshi women from Tower Hamlets on low incomes and responsible for social reproductive labour in their families and communities attest. We draw inspiration from feminist philosophy of food and taste, and everyday domestic aesthetics. Reflecting on our data, we combine these philosophies with Krishnendu Ray’s critique of food sociologists who imagine that people on low incomes lack a sense of beauty because their lives are dominated by their life of suffering. To conclude, we propose that food aesthetics should become part of the politics of food distribution and rights.

Abbreviation	J. Poverty Soc. Justice
Journal Impact	1.15
Quartiles(Global)	SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY(Q2)

ISSN	1759-8273, 1759-8281
h-index	21

Publication Information	Publisher: The Policy Press，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 2010，Proportion of original research papers: 100.00%，Self Citation Rate:9.10%， Gold OA Rate: 25.93%

Journal of Poverty and Social Justice

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Navigating tricky waters: inter-agency collaboration and competing logics in Swedish welfare provision

Safety net of last resort: the evolution, determinants and adequacy of Dutch minimum income support

The household as a constraint on social assistance: analysing the household-construct in the Netherlands’ parliamentary history on social assistance

Enacting the socio-economic duty: inequalities of outcome and section 1 Equality Act 2010

Changing circumstances and new basic premises: turning the affordability and feasibility relationship on its head: a reply to ‘The big tax hikes that make UBI “affordable” could be used to cut poverty in more targeted ways’ by Donald Hirsch1

Navigating tricky waters: inter-agency collaboration and competing logics in Swedish welfare provision

Safety net of last resort: the evolution, determinants and adequacy of Dutch minimum income support

The household as a constraint on social assistance: analysing the household-construct in the Netherlands’ parliamentary history on social assistance

Enacting the socio-economic duty: inequalities of outcome and section 1 Equality Act 2010

The fragrance of ghee: food aesthetics, food insecurity and policy dreams