Poverty and multi-layered social assistance in Europe

Abstract

Social assistance provides a last safety net to protect against poverty. Because it often assists individuals with multiple problems and an accumulation of biographical risk, it is an important tool for promoting social inclusion. Highly decentralized and personalized social assistance schemes are important tools in helping multi-problem families and tackling cumulative deprivation while taking into account local opportunities and needs. However, the chapter highlights that in order to guarantee a dignified minimum income, uniform guidelines on means-tests, conditions and implementation are needed, whilst access should be secured and guaranteed. To ensure poor regions are able to guarantee legal minimum incomes, the responsibility for financing must also be borne, at least in part, by the governing entity that guarantees the right. Moreover, to be effective, social assistance must be articulated as part of the broader edifice of the welfare state with different, distinct, and mutually complementary layers.