The word ‘deserving’ has a long, and often sorry, history in the UK’s social work and social security systems. Those who had fallen into hard times were seen as either the ‘deserving poor’ or the ‘undeserving poor’, according to how much they were seen as having caused their own misfortune or not.  

International research over the last few decades has shown that most of us still carry many of the same instincts when considering who should get extra state help in the form of financial support. We tend to favour those who have tried to find work, have contributed to society in other times and those who are seen as needing help the most, especially older people and the most disabled. Recent immigrants and working-age adults are less favoured for support. 

However, people with most contact with the most marginalised, including social workers, priests and welfare officers, and those who have lived in poverty themselves, are more likely to favour support for all who need it. 

A new paper from CASCADE’s ongoing Welsh Government-commissioned evaluation of the Basic Income for Care Leavers in Wales Pilot, explores the attitudes of professionals who support care leavers, as well as the attitudes of care leavers who have received an unconditional basic income from Welsh Government.  

The Basic Income Pilot for Care Leavers in Wales provided 644 young people who aged out of care in 2022-3 the equivalent of a living wage for 2 years between the ages of 18 and 20. They also received the usual support for care leavers plus additional financial advice. 

Our paper reports that professionals and young people all agreed that young people who had spent time in care should get extra help from the state. However, many professionals and a few of the young people were uneasy about payments to everyone without any conditions. In other words, they felt that young people should do something in return for the payments, such as job-seeking, attending college or engaging with professionals. Some of the professionals thought the payments were unrealistically large, while others hoped they would prove aspirational and provide a good start to adulthood.  

None of the professionals shared the views of some opposition politicians who did not support the payments being made to eligible former unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people. Instead, they wanted the payments to go to any young people who would make good use of them. 

In summary, they thought that care leavers deserve support, but not all agreed that this support – an unconditional basic income – was the right one. 

We won’t know final outcomes for young people who received the payments until later in 2027, but the evaluation so far has helped us think deeply about how best to support care leavers as they embark on adulthood. All our reports and publications to date can be found here.

If this interested you, why don’t you check out other related work by CASCADE authors? 

Mathur, V. (2026). ‘Seen’, ‘Respected’ and ‘Empowered’: Exploring the Dignity Dividend of a Universal Basic Income. Progress in Development Studies, https://doi.org/10.1177/14649934261445713  

David Westlake, Cindy Corliss, Sarah Thompson, Melissa Meindl, Clive Diaz, Ria Talwar, Louise Folkes, Devolved Budgets in Children’s Social Care: A Logic Model Based on Three Pilot Evaluations, The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 52, Issue 7, October 2022, Pages 3999–4020, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcac019