Basic Income and Minimum Income schemes have gained popularity in the last few months due to the academic and political debate developed around ongoing experiments at the local, regional and national level. Moreover, the Italian government introduced the Citizenship Income (Reddito di Cittadinanza) in January 2019 with Law no. 4/2019.

Many authors define Basic and Minimum Income as necessary tools to fight unemployment, economic and social inequalities determined by the economic crisis or by the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Supporters of these measures consider them as a tool to make welfare policies and related administrative procedures more efficient and transparent. On the other hand, critics of these measures consider them as inefficient, expensive and bureaucratically complex. As a matter of fact, since the implementation of Basic and Minimum Income schemes is still limited, it is difficult to assess their effectiveness and sustainability.

The POLBIS project aims to investigate the main political goals driving the adoption of Minimum Income schemes; the extent to which these political choices determine the capacity of administrations to deliver these benefits; the problems public administrations have to cope with during the implementation of these measures and strategies adopted to solve them; the extent to which these problems affect beneficiaries.

Using a qualitative-quantitative approach, POLBIS analyses some Minimum Income schemes such as the Italian Citizenship Income and its implementation in the Veneto Region, and the experimentations B-MINCOME in Barcelona and Weten wat werk in Utrecht.

POLBIS is a project of the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies at the University of Padova, financed by the Cariparo Foundation under the grant ‘Scientific Research of Excellence 2018’.

The project will end in February 2022 and is articulated in the following WPs:

WP 1 – Project Management: coordination of the project, financial management and reporting, management of internal and external relationships and communication, documentation management.

WP 2 – Theoretical Background: critical review of literature on Basic and Minimum Incomes and active inclusion policies; definition of the research framework.

WP 3 – Fieldwork and data collection: During this stage the empirical research will be planned and conducted in the Veneto Region, Barcelona, and Utrecht, using a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach (documents and data gathering, interviews with key-informants).

WP 4 – Data analysis: elaboration of data using NViVo and STATA, production of research reports.

WP 5 – Dissemination: publications, organization of and participation in scientific conferences, organization of workshops with local administrators.