Characterising the Lives and Living Experiences of Welfare Recipients and Their Households – the Case of the Public Assistance Grant of Trinidad and Tobago

Internationally, cash transfers as social welfare interventions have become popular since the 1990s as a preferred mode of disbursing state funding in order to improve the lives of the poor and redistribute the wealth of states so that equity, social justice, and fairness can prevail. Globally, there is limited research on client’s perspectives on cash transfers. In Trinidad and Tobago, the Public Assistance Grant (PAG) has prevailed as an Unconditional Cash Transfer for over 70 years. This study interrogates the perceptions of welfare recipients, focusing upon their quality of life, self-reliance, human capabilities, and service delivery experiences based on their encounters with the PAG. Drawing upon a mixed method design, data were collected using a survey instrument and focus group interviews. In accordance with social justice framework, phenomenological insights permitted a pluralistic thrust towards determining and understanding lived realities of recipients and their households, in the context of being beneficiaries of the PAG. By learning about the characteristics of recipients and their households and through their experiential insights, our results are valuable in guiding policy processes to positively impact poverty alleviation and reduction in the context of a welfare intervention that has persisted for 70 years.