People in Scotland believe that we all should have enough to live a decent life, free from the injustice of poverty, debt, and destitution. But more and more of us feel that we are on shaky ground. Some of our incomes never seem enough to cover what we need for the essentials of a decent life. Many of us struggle to pay our bills, heat our homes, or even buy enough to eat.
The policy solution that has emerged in response to these issues is the Minimum Income Guarantee, a transformational idea centred on setting a minimum income level below which nobody in Scotland would not be allowed to fall.
The Minimum Income Guarantee can provide the solid foundation that we all need, no matter what life throws at us. Through a combination of fair paid work, high quality services, and better social security, all of us will have the right to a minimum standard of living. It's an investment in a better future where we all have the freedom to build a more secure life for ourselves and our households, and a better society for everyone.
We all have a role to play in pushing for the implementation of a Minimum Income Guarantee. We can come together to get the policy on the agenda for this year's Scottish elections, and then push for progress to make it happen in the next Parliament. Join us.
Campaign Actions
We have some suggested campaign actions below. This is a chance to discuss the impact of poverty among your communities and help shape the development of the Minimum Income Guarantee in Scotland.
- Post about your support for the Minimum Income Guarantee on, social media using the hashtag #SecureFoundation
- Include the Minimum Income Guarantee in your manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections. The Core Script and briefings below can help.
- Use our Core Script to have a conversation about the Minimum Income Guarantee with your colleagues and networks.
- Host your own event focusing on the Minimum Income Guarantee to reach local organisations, the Poverty Alliance can provide a speaker.
- Record a 40 second video clip for your socials outlining why your organisation supports the Minimum Income Guarantee. Bonus points if you can end your video with “It's time for a Minimum Income Guarantee so we all have a secure foundation for a better life and a better society.”
- Ask your local MSP and Election Candidates what their views are on the Minimum Income Guarantee and what they are doing to support it – remember to tell us what they said!
- Include the Minimum Income Guarantee in your policy work, including asking MSPs and Election Candidates to support the Guarantee in the next Parliament..
- Join the Poverty Alliance to be part of Scotland’s anti-poverty network and help shape our policy and campaigns work on the Minimum Income Guarantee.
Join our campaigns mailing list
Core Script
Our core script can help you talk to others about the Minimum Income Guarantee, and show them how it can help us build a better Scotland together.
You can read it in the window to the right, or download it from here.
Drawing A Line conference
The Poverty Alliance Conference 2023 - Drawing A Line - was an opportunity to explore why a Minimum Income Guarantee is needed, looking at key aspects of the current poverty problem in Scotland.
We identified priority actions and key campaigning priorities that will take us closer to a Minimum Income Guarantee. We have brought together all the briefings from the different conference sessions into the document that you can read in the window below, or download it from here.
You can also see a fantastic graphic record of the day, created by Eddy Phillips and films of the morning and afternoon plenary sessions.
Morning Session
Afternoon Session
A fantastic graphic recording of the day, created by Eddy Phillips. Click the image to explore!
The reports and briefings on the first six Drawing A Line seminars are below.
Enter your email address to receive regular e-updates about our work. If at any time you want to stop receiving these, simply contact us. We’ll keep your details safe and won’t share them with any other organisations for their marketing purposes. For full details see our Privacy Policy.