ABSTRACT
171At a superficial glance, Switzerland has very little experience with welfare as Americans or other Europeans know it. This is true in a double sense. First, Switzerland simply never established (until 1990) an income support system for the poor that compared in scale with those of Europe or the United States. 1 Second, the country enjoyed relatively low unemployment rates and reasonable wages for many years, so that there was less need for transfer payments to help the poor. Some would argue that the relatively low level of transfer payments is a substantial reason for the low level of poverty.
