Social Welfare Policy Reform Since the 1990s: Comparison of the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic

Many European countries, including the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, have developed reputations for innovative social policies. Since the creation of the European Union (EU), many national policies have remained in place while others have continued to evolve at a much faster pace, including means-tested forms of assistance such as a minimum income guarantee. The economic crisis in 2009 caused this particular benefit to attract more attention across Europe. These two countries, the UK in the capitalist West, and the Czech Republic, a formerly communist, young democracy in East-Central Europe, have been considered leaders in welfare, anti-poverty reform. More recently, their social policies have been influential throughout the European Union as other countries adopted similar measures to address poverty (Kaufman 2007). The research will test the hypothesis that the evolution and efficiency of minimum income policy differs due to institutional political influences prevalent in each country. For example, the communist regime legacy in the Czech Republic, along with their relatively new democracy, influences their limited, one-component living minimum, whereas the multi- facet minimum income scheme in the United Kingdom, has been slowly evolving since the Beveridge Report in 1942. Both the Czech Republic and the UK display strong institutional influence in their social policies, but we can also detect the influence of current, democratic politics on their respective welfare states. These influences helped move the reforms along in the UK and often obstructed progress in the Czech Republic