Social Assistance – For How Long?

Social assistance payments are considered as a way by which the state can help people who cannot receive income by work or possession of property. Unfortunately, we are witnessing abuse of the system by certain groups in society for years. The current law for social assistance has numerous requirements and provisions for who is entitled to such payments. As well there is a separate state agency that administers and monitors welfare payments. The law however does not stipulate for how long such help can be granted.

What is the result? While unemployment benefits have a limitation period according to length of service, the welfare payments do not. The proposed change by the labor ministry for introducing a certain period for receiving welfare assistance is a wonderful initiative. The planned change however has two major defects.

First, one of the expected changes is to introduce a maximum period for receiving social welfare payment of up to 18 months. This means that people of working age that receive such social payment will have the right to receive them longer than unemployed people with the longest length of service (over 25 years), because the latter are entitled to a maximum of 12 months of unemployment benefits according to Social Security Code.

On the other hand, it appears that one year after the social payment is suspended people will be able to reacquire it. In reality the change consists of termination of participation in the system for one year and nothing more or less. This, of course, will turn out some of the false participants but is not a long-term decision of the problem. Most of these people have other incomes and can sustain their existence without welfare payments. And there is nothing that is easier than filing a claim for payment in one year time. The knowledge that you will classify for social welfare payments after a one-year period cannot be compared with the perspective of not participating in the system after defined cumulative period of time or in the case of cheating or misreporting.

To be truthful we have to say that there are certain provisions in the law that are grounds for dropping out of the system, i.e. refusal of unemployed to participate in programs organized and financed by the labor ministry. Anyway, such provisions are most often easy to avoid, and if applied last for a short time. In other words, if you know the system well you can take advantage of state's generosity for years (backed by taxpayer's money).

What should be done?

1/ Put into practice one of the basic principles laid in the law on social assistance which is “Receiving of monthly social welfare payments is bounded by expanding socially useful work ”.

2/ Removal of the possible restoration of the right to social payments after a defined period of time, or if there is such restoration it should be at least five years after its imposition.

3/ Acceleration of the process of transferring the responsibility of social support from central administration to municipalities. Monitoring and control on local level can give amazing results.

4/ Introduction of a maximum period for social payments in one person's lifespan. Some states in the USA have introduced limitation of 60 months total for social payments per person in the course of his life. The results were amazing – the claims for assistance dropped 65% and stabilized on low level despite rising of unemployment in different periods.

In the end, we can define some basic principles that should be implemented if quick and radical reform is begun. These principles will optimize expenditures, will bring back many of the long-term “customers” to the labor market and will make possible to grant dignifying assistance for those who really need it.

•  For those who can work – assistance only for work – the motives are both economic and practical;

•  Everyone who is applying for social assistance should be regarded as able to work until all possibilities are exhausted;

•  The assessment of the results of the proposed by should be made via comparison with those who are employed. Often, the opponents of the proposed system argue that social payments will be less than the current ones. We can only say that social welfare payments should be compared with income of one normal working family but not with those of the past social assistance system. The expected drop out of false recipients and their inclusion in the labor market will benefit society.