A Trend of Welfare-State Reforms: The Shift to the Asset-Based Welfare

SAITO Taku
Abstract:
Recently, we can observe a tendency that policymakers in the welfare states, notably in the U.S. and the U.K., are planning to newly adopt policies of personal asset-holdings in stead of the various kinds of welfare provisions which have been the pillar of economic securities for individuals since the Second World War. These new policy-packages are generally called the "Asset-Based Welfare". A representative one is a series of asset-building-promoting accounts which are opened by an individual with a cooperation of public sectors. The objects of this paper are, firstly, to examine the actual conditions of those accounts, and secondly,to investigate the theoretical backgrounds of the Asset-Based Welfare and the political aims of policymakers to implement the policies of personal asset-holdings.


Keywords: Asset-Based Welfare, Basic Capital, Basic Income, Ownership Society, Welfare Reform