ABSTRACT
The concept of a “safety net” against poverty refers to the various formal and informal mechanisms that may prevent individuals or social groups falling into poverty. Social protection is generally concerned with the position of people who are vulnerable. Vulnerability depends more on the possibility of changing circumstances than it does on the experience of poverty. Social protection is more likely to offer “income smoothing,” allowing the maintenance of income during periods of interruption, than the delivery of basic income to people who would not otherwise be part of the formal economy.
