NEW YORK - The rolling back of protections for people living in poverty has created fertile ground for far-right movements across the world, warned the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter, in a new report presented to the General Assembly today.
"Welfare reform in the name of austerity and efficiency has alienated millions of people living in poverty and played into the hands of a far right looking to exploit discontent," De Schutter said.
"Government restructuring of welfare systems has led to increasingly harsh conditions linked to receiving benefits and the ramping up of digital surveillance. Programmes once designed to provide basic security to all in times of need now shame and punish the very people they are meant to support."
The report details how, rather than reducing poverty or cutting public expenditure, modern welfare systems stigmatise claimants, forcing them into unsuitable jobs under the threat of sanctions, subjecting them to algorithms that falsely flag fraud, and even penalising families by removing children when poverty is misclassified as 'neglect'. The Special Rapporteur flagged his recent letters to the governments of France and the United Kingdom, where major welfare reforms risk trapping more people in poverty.
"These punitive welfare systems increase economic insecurity, erode trust in public institutions and leave millions feeling humiliated and abandoned by mainstream politics," the expert said, citing a study that found that a one-point increase in income inequality corresponded almost exactly to a one-point increase in support for populist parties.
"It is in this void that far-right populists thrive, presenting themselves as champions of those left behind by the 'elite'," he said. "But their agenda is not to empower people in poverty - it is to further dismantle protections for their own gain. Once in power, they work to maintain the privileges of the very economic elite they denounce in their speeches, slashing food assistance, healthcare and other life-saving services, and further deepening poverty and exclusion."
The report highlights deep cuts to social spending in countries ranging from Argentina to the United States, depriving millions of basic healthcare or income support, even as tax cuts shift wealth from the poorest households to the richest.
"These are the politics of exclusion: a deliberate decision to cut off lifelines to the poor while rewarding the richest echelons of society, often in the name of protecting public budgets from 'outsiders' or the so-called 'undeserving poor'," De Schutter said.
The Special Rapporteur called on governments to shift away from narrowly targeted benefit schemes and towards investing in universal, rights-based social protection to counter the rise of the far right. He urged governments to reframe the welfare state not as a cost to be reduced, but as part of a strategy that has been proven to deliver security and wellbeing for all.
"Social protection is our most effective tool for eradicating poverty. It is not charity, nor is it a favour granted under strict conditions; it is a human right that should be provided to all willingly and with respect," the expert said.
"Thousands of people in poverty I speak with tell me they feel stigmatised and monitored rather than supported. Unless social protection is taken seriously as a human right, far-right populists will continue to reap what has been sown," De Schutter said.
