IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2021-165.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Simulation of options to replace the special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant and close the poverty gap at the food poverty line

Author

Listed:
  • Maya Goldman
  • Ihsaan Bassier
  • Joshua Budlender
  • Lindi Mzankomo
  • Ingrid Woolard
  • Murray Leibbrandt

Abstract

We use a fiscal incidence model based on the South African 2014/15 Living Conditions Survey to simulate the poverty reduction impacts of a selection of medium-to-long-term social grant options with the goal of replacing the existing special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant upon its expiry and closing the extreme (food poverty line) poverty gap. Our key findings are that the introduction of a household-targeted family poverty grant is theoretically able to reduce extreme poverty most efficiently; however, it faces stark implementation challenges.

Suggested Citation

  • Maya Goldman & Ihsaan Bassier & Joshua Budlender & Lindi Mzankomo & Ingrid Woolard & Murray Leibbrandt, 2021. "Simulation of options to replace the special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant and close the poverty gap at the food poverty line," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-165, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-165
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2021-165-simulation-options-replace-special-COVID-19-SRD-grant-close-poverty-gap-food-poverty-line.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maya Goldman & Ingrid Woolard & Jon Jellema, 2021. "The Impact of Taxes and Transfers on Poverty and Income Distribution in South Africa 2014/15," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 106, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    2. Stephan Klasen & Ingrid Woolard, 2009. "Surviving Unemployment Without State Support: Unemployment and Household Formation in South Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 18(1), pages 1-51, January.
    3. Bassier, Ihsaan & Budlender, Joshua & Zizzamia, Rocco & Leibbrandt, Murray & Ranchhod, Vimal, 2021. "Locked down and locked out: Repurposing social assistance as emergency relief to informal workers," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    4. Martin Wittenberg, 2010. "An introduction to maximum entropy and minimum cross-entropy estimation using Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 10(3), pages 315-330, September.
    5. Hamoudi, Amar & Thomas, Duncan, 2014. "Endogenous coresidence and program incidence: South Africa's Old Age Pension," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 30-37.
    6. Andrew Kerr, 2018. "Job Flows, Worker Flows and Churning in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(S1), pages 141-166, January.
    7. Maya GOLDMAN & Ingrid WOOLARD & Jon JELLEMA, 2020. "The Impact of Taxes and Transfers on Poverty and Income Distribution in South Africa 2014/2015," Working Paper 148aae17-521b-428b-85de-b, Agence française de développement.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ihsaan Bassier & Joshua Budlender & Maya Goldman, 2022. "Social distress and (some) relief: Estimating the impact of pandemic job loss on poverty in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-80, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Ihsaan Bassier & Joshua Budlender, 2024. "Stimulus effects of a large public employment programme," Working Paper a09be470-a23f-4594-b51a-f, Agence française de développement.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vimal Ranchhod & Reza Che Daniels, 2021. "Labour Market Dynamics in South Africa at the Onset of the COVID‐19 Pandemic," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 89(1), pages 44-62, March.
    2. Bassier, Ihsaan, 2022. "Firms and inequality when unemployment is high," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117999, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Ihsaan Bassier, 2022. "Firms and inequality when unemployment is high," CEP Discussion Papers dp1872, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Bassier, Ihsaan & Budlender, Joshua & Zizzamia, Rocco & Leibbrandt, Murray & Ranchhod, Vimal, 2021. "Locked down and locked out: Repurposing social assistance as emergency relief to informal workers," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    5. Bassier, Ihsaan, 2023. "Firms and inequality when unemployment is high," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    6. Ihsaan Bassier & Joshua Budlender & Rocco Zizzamia & Ronak Jain, 2023. "The labour market and poverty impacts of COVID‐19 in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 91(4), pages 419-445, December.
    7. Vimal Ranchhod, 2017. "Household responses to the cessation of grant income: The case of South Africa's Old Age Pension," SALDRU Working Papers 213, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    8. Platteau, Jean-Philippe & Guirkinger, Catherine, 2019. "The dynamics of family systems: lessons from past and present times," CEPR Discussion Papers 13570, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Schotte, Simone & Zizzamia, Rocco & Leibbrandt, Murray, 2018. "A poverty dynamics approach to social stratification: The South African case," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 88-103.
    10. Andrew Kerr & Martin Wittenberg, 2019. "Earnings and employment microdata in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-47, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. LaFave, Daniel & Thomas, Duncan, 2017. "Extended families and child well-being," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 52-65.
    12. Marisa Coetzee, 2013. "Finding the Benefits: Estimating the Impact of The South African Child Support Grant," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(3), pages 427-450, September.
    13. Manea, Roxana Elena & Piraino, Patrizio & Viarengo, Martina, 2023. "Crime, inequality and subsidized housing: Evidence from South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    14. Pieter Serneels, 2004. "The Nature of Unemployment in Urban Ethiopia," CSAE Working Paper Series 2004-01, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Jing You & Miguel Niño‐Zarazúa, 2019. "The Intergenerational Impact of China's New Rural Pension Scheme," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 45(S1), pages 47-95, December.
    16. Shakeba Foster, 2023. "Employment transitions with high unemployment and a small informal sector: Examining worker flows during normal and recessionary periods in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-56, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Michael Grimm, 2006. "Mortality and survivors'consumption," Working Papers DT/2006/13, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    18. Rulof Burger & Ingrid Woolard, 2005. "The State of the Labour Market in South Africa after the First Decade of Democracy," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 133, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    19. Pierre, Gaëlle & Scarpetta, Stefano, 2004. "Employment Regulations through the Eyes of Employers: Do They Matter and How Do Firms Respond to Them?," IZA Discussion Papers 1424, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Özler, Berk, 2007. "Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality in Post-apartheid South Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(3), pages 487-529, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-165. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.