Sanctions for young welfare recipients

Abstract

"Social welfare systems usually imply specific obligations for benefit recipients. If a recipient does not comply with these obligations, a sanction involving a punitive benefits reduction may be imposed. We give an overview of the literature on the effects of sanctions in social welfare systems and present first results on sanction effects for young unemployed welfare recipients based on German administrative micro data. Our results suggest that mild and strong sanctions lead to an increased transition rate to work and that this effect is higher for strong sanctions. However, strong sanctions for young welfare recipients involve a complete withdrawal of the basic cash transfer payments." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Berg, G., Uhlendorff, A. & Wolff, J. (2014): Sanctions for young welfare recipients. In: Nordic Economic Policy Review No. 1, p. 177-208.