This report focuses on unemployment and minimum income benefits for people of working age. Individuals with short or no employment records (mainly young people), the self-employed, those with non-standard working arrangements, and the long-term unemployed are often not entitled to higher-tier, or any, unemployment benefits. No Member State was identified where more than 80% of those entitled to minimum income benefits receive them. Benefit recipients at higher risk of having an inadequate income include those without access to social housing in areas with high housing costs, unemployed individuals whose most recent job was low paid and the long-term unemployed people. The report also investigates the rejection of applications (frequently, around 30% are rejected), the digitalisation of application processes (most common for unemployment benefits) and economic activation requirements (typically, 1-6% of benefit recipients annually are sanctioned for not complying with activity requirements) and service entitlements.
Authors
Related Organizations
- Catalogue no
- TJ-01-24-003-EN-N
- Cite this publication
- Eurofound (2024), Social protection 2.0: Unemployment and minimum income benefits , Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.2806/0704651
- ISBN
- 978-92-897-2425-8
- Number of pages
- 94
- Pages
- 94
- Permalink
- eurofound.link/ef24001
- Published in
- Ireland
- Reference no
- EF24001
Files
Table of Contents
- Contents 5
- Executive summary 7
- Introduction 9
- Scope 9
- Methods 10
- Definitions and limitations 10
- EU policy context 11
- Chapter 1: Social protection: Poverty reduction and expenditure 13
- Impact of social protection on poverty reduction 13
- Poverty reductions: Population groups and benefit types 14
- Expenditure: Diverging upwards 16
- Chapter 2: Coverage gaps 19
- Groups not reached by benefits 19
- Non-entitlement and non-coverage 22
- Non-take-up 31
- Chapter 3: Inadequacy 37
- Difficulties in making ends meet regardless of benefit receipt 37
- Links between monetary benefits 38
- Unemployment benefit 38
- Minimum income benefit 42
- Temporary measures implemented during the cost-of-living crisis 44
- Inflation adjustments 44
- Chapter 4: Online benefit applications 47
- Member State overview 47
- Factors impacting access to benefits 49
- Support and solutions 51
- Chapter 5: Rejections: Prevalence, trends and reasons 53
- Chapter 6: Service entitlements 55
- Healthcare 55
- Public transport 56
- Childcare 57
- Housing 58
- Utilities 58
- Culture, sport and other entitlements 58
- Chapter 7: Economic activation: Making work pay, sanctions and support 59
- Financial incentives to work 59
- Support: Increasing employability and providing job offers 64
- Chapter 8: Recipient characteristics 67
- Unemployment benefit 67
- Minimum income benefit 69
- Discussion and policy pointers 73
- Adequacy of support 73
- Gaps in social protection 74
- Non-take-up and overpayment 75
- Digitalisation of application procedures 76
- Avoid considering narrow indicators when assessing social protection 76
- Incentives for economic activation 77
- Conclusions 79
- Key findings 79
- References 81
- Databases 88
- Annexes 89
- Annex 1: National unemployment and minimum income benefit schemes, 2024 89
- Annex 2: Network of Eurofound Correspondents 92
