May 31, 2010
Influence of the social assistance act (WWB) on the use of social assistance
The new social assistance act (WWB) was introduced on 1 January 2004. The most important policy change was that municipalities were given the full responsibility over their social assistance expenditures. This paper examines the effect of this new funding system.
The results show that the number of recipients has been reduced by about 8%, which can be attributed to a higher outflow from social assistance. Three quarters of this effect (6%) can be attributed to the WWB, and the remainder to the earlier partial decentralization of social assistance.
This publication is in Dutch.
Authors
Frank van Es