Exploring Universal Basic Income and Job Guarantee as Social Security Policy Responses to COVID-19 Challenges in South Africa

By mid-2020, South Africa had shredded 2.2 million jobs, and less than 40% of these had been recuperated by the end of the last quarter. Resultantly, COVID-19 has threatened people's aptitude to afford themselves and their families a passable standard of living, thus relying on social protection. In South Africa, social protection has been a topical theme in recent years, given that the existing approach has proved unsuccessful in convincingly reducing poverty, inequality and unemployment. Using a desktop review, this paper examined South Africa's social protection regime and its impact during COVID-19. It further explored the applicability of a Universal Basic Income and Job Guarantee in South Africa. The findings revealed that, while COVID-19 social security interventions may be considered sizeable, they have not been effective in offsetting the impact of poverty and unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the article provided policy intervention recommendations for social security post-COVID-19 in South Africa. Finally, as a caveat, given that the nature of the social policy discourse in South Africa is heavily shaped by political priorities and ideological preferences, whichever decision is adopted may likely depend on considerations of the above-mentioned factors.