The fight against social inequalities has been one of the main goals of national welfare states. Nevertheless, recent developments in social policies, along with the globalization of economy, have increased disparities in income and living standards of different groups of people in Western countries. Such an increase in social polarization has been accompanied by a growing attention to the emergence of different forms of «inequalities syndromes», i. e. multiple combinations of social vulnerabilities. This article discusses how recent changes in welfare states impacted on inequalities by looking at social policy retrenchment, the normative recalibration towards «preventative approaches» and the transformation of modes of governance. Moreover, it discusses how the shift from a perception of inequality based on «position» to one based on «chance» has affected political discourses and the articulation of social policy reforms. The article concludes that we need to develop
a new narrative for twenty-first-century welfare states, which should call for distributive justice in a «post-economic-growth framework» based on the protection of human and planet health.