ABSTRACT
Introduction Financed by public fund and based on citizenship rights, social assistance is a meanstested programme where eligibility is dependent on a test of income. To address the immediate needs of recipients, it can provide a wide range of in kind and in cash benefits. As a “programme of last resort” to tackle poverty, it has been conceived more as a residual programme filling the gaps of universal social insurance-based programmes. In recent years, social assistance programmes have received growing attention from governments and social policy analysts (Gough et al., 1997; Ditch, 1999; Ditch and Oldfields, 1999; OECD, 1998a. 1998b, 1999; Saraceno, 2002). The social assistance programme is not only a good indicator of the reliability and effectiveness of a given welfare state as a whole, but of the degree to which labour market, employment policies and other social security and family policy schemes fail to offer adequate provision (Leisering and Leibfried, 1999: 5).
