ABSTRACT
The level and change of the unemployment rate are regularly used as central indicators defining the need to take political action or to measure the success of state policies. Changes in the unemployment benefit system and how these materialize in the financial situation of households with an unemployed member represent indicators of success. Employment growth can only partly explain the reduction of unemployment since the employment rate is back where it was in 1990 and only about three percentage points higher than in 1994. A significant reduction of unemployment and a high(er) employment rate are feasible within differently configured institutional settings, and it is hardly possible to exactly determine which reconfigured element has delivered what. The problem which particularly the Netherlands and Denmark as originally high-unemployment countries solved was to start with changed political priorities facilitating an escape from a vicious cycle.
