Can Social Security End Poverty

Can social security end poverty?

Poverty has been a problem in most countries around the world for many years, not only in developing countries but also in developed countries. Though there are much national and international discourse and many agreements to achieve about poverty, this conclusion is widely recognized by most academics, policy-makers and many other organizations (Peter Alcock, 1993). Therefore, combating poverty has also become a big concern through out the world. As a matter of fact, the history of combating poverty is almost as long as the history of human beings. The desire of ending poverty has long appeared before social security system. Though we may all agreed that social security is an effective method to tackle poverty,

Though poverty has been a big concern for various agencies for such a long time, ‘ending poverty’ is still neither easy to understand nor easy to achieve. For example, in 1999, a heated debated was caused by the Prime Minister Tony Blair’s commitment that by 2020 child poverty will be eliminated (Blair, 1999). One of the significant reasons led to this debate is that poverty is a multi-dimensional concept, to what extent can a policy end poverty depends on how this concept was defined and measured.

To begin with, the first impression comes to us about ‘poverty’ is usually lack of money. Definitely, financial hardship is a significantly important part of poverty. However, the meaning of poverty goes far beyond than merely financial hardship. Social exclusion, as some academics referred as ‘new poor’ (EC, 1991), has become a rapid growing phenomenon and raised our concerns in recent years. For instance, the feeling of ‘voicelessness’, ‘vulnerability’, ‘fear’ and ‘powerlessness’ (Charity Commission, 2011) can truly affect people’s standard of living despite the amount of money or assets they own. For example, in ancient China, merchants were not allowed to take part in politics no matter how rich they were. Under such circumstance, many merchants were even willing to sacrifice vast sum of money for a low position in government system. However, not all social exclusion can be compensated by money, instead, most

Despite all the controversial arguments about the capacity of social security in ending poverty, there is little doubt that social security plays a main role in combating poverty. Moreover, in most countries equipped with social security system, social security policies must have achieved a certain degree of success in reducing poverty. And in some developing areas, social security still remains the most effective method.

In South Africa, various agencies have come to a consensus that social protection is the most effective method to tackle poverty (Adesina, 2010). Marianne (2012) has discovered that there is a positive correlation between social security policies and poverty rate in South Africa. In this analysis, the author drew two conclusions: one is that the more social security spends on this issue, the lower poverty rate it will achieve; the second one is the more income groups social security system covers, the lower poverty level it will be. When both these two conditions are meet, the strongest effect of the system will be achieved. As we can see from the table below. Other academics also find similar conclusions, for example, Barrientos