Infobae (24.11.2020) The Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) presented the second phase of the pilot test for the affiliation of Household Workers, through which the payment process carried out by the employer is simplified and automated . This provides continuity and simplifies the operation of the pilot test, benefiting 2.4 million informal workers who carry out paid activities at home .

Euronews (24.11.2020) How do you get by without a bank account? This is a question asked daily by millions of refugees worldwide who simply don’t have access to standard financial services. Even the digital and online services that many of us take for granted - tools that help us to save, transfer and receive money - are often out of reach for displaced people.

worldbank.org (nov 2020) The unprecedented and ongoing scale-up of social protection responses to the COVID-19 pandemic dwarf the response to the Great Recession. But how are countries financing such scale-up efforts? This note lays out ten stylized findings from a rapid review of social protection financing sources in thirty-one countries, including in terms of composition between external and domestic resources, and specific modalities within each.

NBER (October 2020) This working paper examine trends in employment, earnings, and incomes over the last two decades in the United States, and how the safety net has responded to changing fortunes, including the shutdown of the economy in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic. The U.S. safety net is a patchwork of different programs providing in-kind as well as cash benefits and had many holes prior to the Pandemic. In addition, few of the programs are designed explicitly as automatic stabilizers.

October 2020 . See in particular the Meeting of BRICS Ministers of Labour and Employment 

thedailystar.net  (16.11.2020) The government decision to distribute the fund under its social safety net programme through mobile financial services will ensure transparency and bring more unbanked people under the formal financial system, according to industry people.

The Guardian (11.11.2020) Ballot measure exempting ride-sharing companies from treating drivers as employees could serve as model for future laws

European Commission (09.11.2020) The report analyses the progress towards the Europe 2020 target on reducing poverty and social exclusion, together with the latest social trends to watch, and presents the key structural social challenges in each Member State. However, following the COVID-19 pandemic that has swept across Europe in 2020, the report also focuses on the decisive action taken by Member States to protect employment, income and access to services through a variety of measures.

British Politics and Policy at LSE (03.11.2020) Jonathan Wadsworth explains why the furlough scheme seems to have done its job in preventing mass layoffs, as well as other reasons why the total entering unemployment is still much lower than in the 2008-2011 downturn.

VOX, CEPR Policy Portal (04.11.2020) While few groups have weathered the Covid-19 crisis unscathed, recent evidence suggests that the damage has been especially extreme among the economically vulnerable. This column evaluates changing attitudes towards welfare spending as a result of the pandemic. The findings suggest that people living in areas most severely hit by the crisis are increasingly supportive of long-term reforms to the welfare system.