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Five The new poor in the new Europe: the end of a stigma?

  • Serena Romano
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Abstract

Chapter five discusses how CEE countries as new EU member states had to shift from the former residual social safety net to a new “inclusive” approach to anti-poverty measures as advocated by EU institutions. It describes the main challenges that post-communist countries had to deal with in the construction of minimum income schemes and in the adoption of new ideas of social justice, mainly shaped by the condition of need as a main criterion regulating the individual right to state assistance. This chapter also traces the main patterns of poverty in CEE countries until 2008. It shows how during those years CEE countries started diverging significantly in their construction of poverty in accordance with internal priorities and visions underlying the distinction between deserving and non-deserving categories of poor.

Abstract

Chapter five discusses how CEE countries as new EU member states had to shift from the former residual social safety net to a new “inclusive” approach to anti-poverty measures as advocated by EU institutions. It describes the main challenges that post-communist countries had to deal with in the construction of minimum income schemes and in the adoption of new ideas of social justice, mainly shaped by the condition of need as a main criterion regulating the individual right to state assistance. This chapter also traces the main patterns of poverty in CEE countries until 2008. It shows how during those years CEE countries started diverging significantly in their construction of poverty in accordance with internal priorities and visions underlying the distinction between deserving and non-deserving categories of poor.

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