The guarantee of a basic income of citizenship as an instrument of the transforming Welfare State

The current political and economic system, far from promoting the Welfare State, eradicating poverty, and building an inclusive society, expels part of the citizenry, leading them to marginalization or social exclusion. This article analyses a specific measure for fighting poverty and social exclusion that was incorporated into the European political agenda at the end of the 1990s, the Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI), which was intended to respond to the ineffective approach offered by the Social Security system. It was implemented in greater depth, with the aim of facilitating the social integration of the most disadvantaged citizens. An MII, which in the case of the Spanish state would be conceived as a conditional aid on the incorporation of the beneficiary into a social and labor market insertion program, for those citizens who had failed in the system. In the face of the lack of work and exponential unemployment, the MII became the joker for guaranteeing a minimum standard of living for many individuals and families who would otherwise be exposed to social exclusion. Finally, through the comparative study of all the Autonomous Communities, we will observe how the MII has been evolving towards the Basic Income (BI), conceived as a basic social benefit that was intended to adapt to social changes and that wanted to become an instrument to combat job insecurity, lack of economic resources, poverty, exclusion, etc., and to contribute at the same time to the reconstruction of a new Welfare State that was more egalitarian and universalist, in a political and economic context that continued to be dominated by capitalism in its current neoliberal version.