Benefits, poverty and social justice

The ongoing austerity policies combined with increasingly negative public views about benefits are generating the current crisis of social security benefits. Whilst in previous years there might have been greater concerns about administrative issues and take-up, at present increasing proportions of the public are sceptical about the positive aspects to social security. Strategies to defend social security appear to have gained limited political traction. This time of change for income maintenance, is also a time of change for the editorial team at this journal, and I briefly reflect on 18 years on the editorial board.