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This chapter deals with the two liberal regime countries — the US and the UK — and how the defining properties of the liberal welfare regime, such as heavy reliance on means tested benefits and market solutions, have influenced immigrants' social rights. The chapter begins with the USA, which has been regarded as the prototype of the liberal welfare regime, and then moves to the UK. For each country, the basic features of social provision, the nature of the incorporation regime, and the broad contours of immigration are discussed. Then formal inclusion of immigrants in social provision, the impact of retrenchment, welfare state restructuring, and changes in the incorporation regime on immigrants' social rights are examined. The chapter concludes with a comparison of the two countries' welfare regimes and incorporation regimes, emphasizing how similarities and differences affect immigrants' social rights.

This chapter traces changes in immigrants' social rights first in the United States and then in the United Kingdom. The politics of inclusion and exclusion in the US have centered on the extension and contraction of immigrants' welfare rights. In Britain the universalism of the early postwar welfare state encompassed all residents, and the politics of inclusion have been less concerned with the extension of social rights to immigrants but rather with strengthening their social rights through anti-discrimination legislation. The contraction of immigrants' social rights, however, resulted in quite similar policy outputs — lengthy bans on utilizing means tested benefits — but the politics behind the policies was quite different. The concluding discussion summarizes the contrasts and similarities in the politics of exclusion in the two countries.

This chapter examines various objections to a Citizen's Basic Income, such as: people should not be paid for doing nothing; immigration would go up; people would not work; we cannot afford it; it would cause a hike in public expenditure; the money could be better used on other things. Another objection is that if means-tested benefits are abolished, then we would not know to whom we should give passported benefits such as free school meals. The chapter responds to each of these objections, focusing in particular on funding schemes for the Citizen's Basic Incomes such as making changes to the existing tax and benefits structure, taxing appropriation of the commons, or by means of consumption taxes or a Financial Transaction Tax. It also considers some of the problems that a Citizen's Basic Income cannot solve, including disability, housing costs, fuel poverty and climate change.

This chapter discusses the past and current state of the debate on the Citizen's Basic Income. It begins with the Poor Law of 1601 to the era of means-tested benefits. In particular, it cites William Beveridge's 1942 report which proposed a comprehensive system of National Insurance Benefits and centrally administered National Assistance. It then traces the origins of universal benefits in the UK, from Family Allowance to Child Benefit, and considers other failed proposals to reform the tax and benefits systems, including Tax Credits and attempts at a Citizen's Basic Income. It also explains why proposals such as ‘Universal Credit’ were and have been implemented, but not the proposal for a Citizen's Basic Income. Finally, it describes the National Health Service's (NHS) provision of universal, unconditional and nonwithdrawable healthcare and the global debate over the Citizen's Basic Income, and especially with respect to its feasibility and implementation.

This chapter considers four different methods for implementing a Citizen's Basic Income. The first is ‘all in one go’, which abolishes means-tested benefits. The second is ‘all in one go’, but retains means-tested benefits. The third option is gradual roll-out, in which Child Benefit would no longer be payable beyond the sixteenth birthday; that is, the sixteen-year-olds would receive no Income Tax Personal Allowance. The last option involves inviting volunteers among the pre-retired, between the age of sixty and the state pension age. The chapter evaluates each of these methods, taking into account their advantages and disadvantages, and describes an implementation scenario based on the third method. It concludes by proposing an additional option: introducing a very small Citizen's Basic Income that will rise slowly as the rates and thresholds for Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions as well as means-tested benefits adapt.

This chapter presents another case study that analyses the government policies to inform older people of their rights to means-tested benefits. It first describes briefly the social security benefits that are designed for older people, and the financial and demographic situation of older people in the UK. It then takes a short historic view of central government policies on information about means-tested financial assistance for older people. The case study investigates why concern about older people as a group led to more active and targeted information. The chapter is focused on the New Labour government's information policy for Income Support/Minimum Income Guarantee.

This chapter examines developments in social security policy in 2005. It discusses the continuation of the government's primary focus on reducing poverty through paid work, supplemented with means-tested benefits in the form of tax credits. It notes that these cover an increasingly wide range of those in low-paid work, following the extension of the working tax credit to those without children. It identifies the greatly extended role of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in delivering social security in the form of tax credits, as a significant development in social security policy. It involves extending the department's role to one of distributing income as well as collecting revenue, and in the process dealing with a significantly poorer population with different needs and expectations than the traditional client base of the Inland Revenue.

There does not exist a single model forthe welfare state in Europe. Each country has its own model, which is the result of its political and social culture and of its economic evolution. There exist a number of taxonomies of welfare states. In this chapter we favour a taxonomy based on two characteristics: the generosity and the redistributiveness of programs. The main interest of distinguishing among different types of social protection programs is the different implications they have in terms of efficiency, equity, and political sustainability. We observe a trade-off between efficiency and political support on the one hand and equity on the other hand. Other distinguishing features of the welfare state are analysed: individualization, activation, and responsabilization.