In our wealthy nation, it’s unjust that so many people don’t have adequate incomes for a dignified life.
The inadequacies of our social security safety net and labour market have been illuminated by the Covid-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis. Scotland has seen a rising tide of poverty and inequality as people struggle to make ends meet.
One exciting idea to meet that challenge is the Minimum Income Guarantee - setting an income floor below which nobody would be allowed to fall. It’s a simple, but potentially transformative idea, that could draw a line under poverty, by providing all of us with a secure foundation to thrive and develop.
Drawing A Line Seminars
With the help of abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, we have created a series of seminars for our members and other organisations in Scottish civic society, looking at different aspects of the Guarantee, and how we can work together to make it a reality.
The reports and briefings on the first six Drawing A Line seminars are below.
Drawing A Line conference
The Poverty Alliance Conference 2023 - Drawing A Line - was an opportunity to explore why a Minimum Income Guarantee is needed, looking at key aspects of the current poverty problem in Scotland.
We identified priority actions and key campaigning priorities that will take us closer to a Minimum Income Guarantee. We have brought together all the briefings from the different conference sessions into the document that you can read in the window below, or download it from here.
You can also see a fantastic graphic record of the day, created by Eddy Phillips and films of the morning and afternoon plenary sessions.
Morning Session
Afternoon Session
A fantastic graphic recording of the day, created by Eddy Phillips. Click the image to explore!
Campaign Actions
We have some suggested campaign actions below. This is a chance to discuss the impact of poverty among your communities and help shape the development of the Minimum Income Guarantee in Scotland.
- Tweet about the Minimum Income Guarantee using the hashtag #DrawingALine
- Write a blog about our conference, sharing your reflections on why we need a Minimum Income Guarantee and how we can get there. You could also share it with the Poverty Alliance team so we can host it on our website too.
- Send your organisation’s logo to The Poverty Alliance to join our Minimum Income Guarantee supporters list.
- Get any organisations you are involved in as a volunteer or employee to consider actively supporting the Minimum Income Guarantee. We have a useful briefing to help start the conversation.
- Ask your local MSP what their views are on the Minimum Income Guarantee and what they are doing to support it – remember to tell us what they said!
- Organise a local community discussion on the Minimum Income Guarantee – The Poverty Alliance can provide a speaker.
- Sign up to our campaigns mailing list below to find out more about forthcoming events on the Minimum Income Guarantee, as well as other campaigns, including Challenge Poverty Week.
- Include the Minimum Income Guarantee in any policy work you are undertaking, including asking MSPs to prioritise the interim steps that will get us closer to implementation.
- Take to social media to talk about the Minimum Income Guarantee, including sharing videos of why you support the policy; share the Poverty Alliance briefing.
- Join the Poverty Alliance to be part of Scotland’s anti-poverty network and help shape our policy and campaigns work on the Minimum Income Guarantee.
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