ABSTRACT
The persistence of poverty in extensive welfare states has often spurred concerns about whether minimum income schemes are able to provide for a decent standard of living. Both in Britain and Germany, simulated social assistance entitlements could not fully alleviate moderate poverty, but the more severe forms of poverty below the 40 per cent poverty line are virtually eradicated. The poverty rates from the simulated data largely support the evidence from the model family approach. In many industrialized countries, a high poverty risk is in particular associated with the following groups of the population: single parents, especially if they have young children; families with children, especially large families; and the elderly, especially single elderly women. When poverty rates are calculated on the basis of the simulated social assistance entitlements, poverty among single parents radically diminishes. The analysis of the effectiveness of poverty alleviation through social assistance must pay attention to the relationship between equivalence scales used.
