Slashing important social services such as education, health, social protection, water, public transport and housing. These must be increased; if cuts must be made, reduce military spending, payouts to corporations and other expenditures that benefit powerful interest groups and not people. Instead of austerity cuts, governments must identify alternative financing options to enable a people’s recovery, the achievement of human rights and the sustainable development goals.

Reducing coverage and benefits, leaving only a small safety net for a fraction of the poor to achieve cost-savings, excluding many vulnerable populations by slashing programs for children and families, women, the unemployed, the elderly and persons with disabilities. Rather than scaling down social assistance to achieve cost savings, countries should be scaling up and building social protection systems and floors for all, as agreed at the UN (see HRW)

Reducing or freezing the salaries and number of public-sector workers who provide essential services to the population, such as teachers, health and social workers. These must be increased, not decreased, to achieve human rights and development goals (see ActionAid)

(Such as fuel, food, agriculture) making food and transport unaffordable for many households at a time when prices are at a record high (see OXFAM report). Instead, support sustainable agriculture and energy alternatives, including adequate subsidies, price controls and social protection support to all (not just a small safety net targeted to a fraction of the poor), to ensure that food, transport and energy remain affordable for poor people.

Result in layoffs, fees or tariff increases, and unaffordable or low-quality basic goods and services (see EURODAD, PSI and BWP). Instead, invest in affordable quality public services, from education and health to water supply and sanitation to achieve human rights.

Leaving pensioners with lower benefits and increasing old-age poverty and inequality (see ITUC’s report). Governments are also reducing employers’ contributions to social security, however these are deferred wages from workers, they must be increased again and all arrears paid back to social security, to ensure the sustainability of hard-earned pensions.

Such as reducing wages and salary adjustments, decentralizing collective bargaining, and increasing the ability of enterprises to fire employees, lead to precarious jobs and lower workers’ incomes (see ITUC). Instead, countries must increase wages and decent jobs for people.

While most governments temporarily increased health allocations to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, some are reducing health expenditures once the pandemic is over. Yet countries need more than just a temporary increase in health expenditure to deal with the COVID-19 emergency; their populations need sustained investments to implement universal access to quality healthcare (see TWN and Wemos).

On basic goods and services, making them more expensive, lowering household income and contracting economic activity. Instead, governments must tax wealthy individuals and corporations, including the financial sector (see OXFAM).

Rate hikes may make services unaffordable for populations, critical in the case of water, education, health, energy, transport and other essential services, all of which underlie the realization of human rights (see UNICEF)