ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book proposes to shift the analytical focus from the welfare state as a whole to minimum income schemes. These schemes are explicitly designed for the purpose of alleviating poverty and are ultimately responsible for guaranteeing an adequate standard of living. The book focuses on minimum income schemes and assesses their effectiveness in protecting people from poverty. It offers a quantitative assessment of the poverty-alleviating power of the basic safety net of the welfare state and illustrates the impact of means-tested benefits on the income position of private households for three countries, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The book compares social assistance schemes in terms of eligibility, searching for excluded groups of the population. It focuses on the adequacy of social assistance benefits and assesses minimum benefit levels in these schemes.
