Devil in the Detail of Polish Ruling Party’s Welfare Promises

The conservatives in PiS, however, put income redistribution to the fore of the public agenda, party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski even extolling people to read Capital in the 21st Century, the global bestseller by French economist Thomas Picketty that cast fresh light on the issue of inequality.

PiS won the election, promising a 500 zloty (about 115 euros) monthly subsidy for each child in families with more than one, a scheme known as 500+.

Four years on, facing a new election on October 13, PiS has branded itself the creator of a "Polish welfare state", promising to double the minimum wage to 4,000 zloty (900 euros) over the next four years. Its election manifesto rejects "the rules of neo-liberalism".

The party's economic promises have proved electoral gold dust: critics may point to the party's authoritarian bent and its stoking of Polish nationalism, but few doubt its economic policies are key to its consistently strong showing in opinion polls, at over 40 per cent support heading into the election.

But is PiS really tackling inequalities? Income inequality expert Michal Brzezinski, an assistant professor of economics at Warsaw University, says the answer is more nuanced than the party would have voters believe.

The welfare of Polish children has been a key electoral slogan for PiS. Photo: EPA-EFE/ GRZEGORZ MOMOT

Good policy, poorly designed

Take 500+, for instance.

PiS depicted the policy as a silver bullet for child poverty and cites Eurostat data that extreme poverty among Polish children fell from 24.2 per cent to 17.9 per cent between 2015 and 2016. In 2018, 65 per cent of Polish families said they had the means to take their children on a one-week holiday, compared to 53 per cent in 2015....