WorkYP – Working and yet poor

Rising poverty among workers There is a worrying trend today spreading across Europe that challenges the goals proclaimed by the European Pillar of Social Rights. This is the growing number of working people who live below the poverty line or at risk of falling. It is a situation that hinders EU workers to fully enjoy the benefits EU citizenship offers. The EU-funded WorkYP project will conduct research in seven Member States that present significant diversity in geographical position, law and social systems. It will identify the reasons such a situation has emerged. It will also draft proposals for EU and national legislators. A further aim of this project is to prevent social dumping and help EU citizens to recover confidence in public governance. Objective The project Working and Yet Poor (WorkYP) is focused on the increasing social trend of working people at risk or below the poverty line. The Consortium will devote its research to explore the reasons of such phenomenon and elaborate recommendations to the EU and MSs legislators, to enhance the goals proclaimed in the European Pillar of Social Rights. The WorkYP Project will analyse seven representative Countries (Sweden, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Poland), selected on the basis of their geographical area, as well as their different social systems and legal orders. In each such Country, the WorkYP Project has identified four clusters of particularly Vulnerable and Underrepresented Persons (VUP Groups), which disadvantaged conditions impede full enjoyment of EU citizenship. Attenuating divergent trends across Europe will effectively prevent the risk of social dumping and reduce economic shocks. Only tackling vertically the vulnerabilities of VUPs and attenuating inequalities across diverging regimes will grant EU citizens, mostly those who do not circulate, regaining confidence in public governance and substantiating their citizenry’s status.