TOWARDS THE RIGHT TO SOCIAL SECURITY FOR ALL

The document examines the contestation over the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant in South Africa, pitting austerity-driven fiscal consolidation supported by the National Treasury, IMF, and World Bank against civil society demands for a universal basic income. It highlights the SRD grant's inadequacy, as its value is only 46% of the food poverty line, and criticizes exclusionary digital verification systems and budget caps that limit access. The authors recommend transitioning the SRD into a permanent, unconditional basic income funded through progressive taxation and an expansionary macroeconomic framework.

• The Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant is inadequate in value and has suffered real-terms retrogression; as of 2024, it represents only 46% of the food poverty line (FPL).
• Headcount coverage for the SRD grant is severely limited by a National Treasury budget cap that restricts disbursements to approximately 9 million people per month, despite an estimated 16.8 million individuals qualifying under current criteria.
• The government employs several procedural and digital barriers to exclude eligible beneficiaries from the SRD grant, including mandatory bank verification, online-only applications, and biometric identity requirements that exclude holders of paper 'Green ID books'.
• The World Bank has supported the 'modernisation' of the SRD grant through digitalisation to enable 'adequate targeting', and recommends transforming it into a 'jobseekers’ grant' conditional on active job search, which would reduce recipients to approximately 3.9 million.
• The IMF recommends that any expansion of social grants be funded through cuts to other public expenditure rather than additional revenue raising, advocating for a consolidation of 3 percentage points of GDP within three years.
• The authors propose financing a universal adult basic income at the Upper Bound Poverty Line (UBPL) through progressive mechanisms such as a wealth tax, resource rent tax, or social security clawbacks, estimating that the net cost could be 50% lower than the gross cost.

APA

Institute for Economic Justice (2024). TOWARDS THE RIGHT TO SOCIAL SECURITY FOR ALL. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2024-R2SSC-Case-Studies-South-Africa.pdf

Chicago

Institute for Economic Justice. TOWARDS THE RIGHT TO SOCIAL SECURITY FOR ALL. 2024. https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2024-R2SSC-Case-Studies-South-Africa.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Economic Justice |title=TOWARDS THE RIGHT TO SOCIAL SECURITY FOR ALL |date=1 October 2024 |url=https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2024-R2SSC-Case-Studies-South-Africa.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforeconomicjustice2024towards, author = {{Institute for Economic Justice}}, title = {{TOWARDS THE RIGHT TO SOCIAL SECURITY FOR ALL}}, institution = {Institute for Economic Justice}, year = {2024}, month = oct, url = {https://iej.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2024-R2SSC-Case-Studies-South-Africa.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }