The Basic Income for Care Leavers in Wales pilot: perceptions of deservingness amongst recipients and professionals

Abstract This paper explores recipients’ and professionals’ attitudes towards the Basic Income for Care Leavers in Wales pilot. Qualitative interviews were conducted with forty-one professionals and forty-four basic income recipients in the first year of the scheme (2022/2023). The findings are situated within Van Oorshot’s CARIN framework that aids analysis of attitudes towards the ‘deservingness’ of others. The findings indicate that there was an almost unified agreement among these participants that care leavers deserve additional support but much less agreement on whether the basic income pilot is the right way to provide this support. The findings are situated in a context where strong views have been expressed by a small number of politicians and media outlets who question the deservingness more overtly, especially when considering former unaccompanied child asylum seekers. Meanwhile, the Welsh Government, which implemented the pilot, emphasises the state’s obligations to this population and the opportunities that a basic income might facilitate. Implications of the findings relate to how future basic income schemes are justified to the public, recipients and those administering the scheme at a local level.