Putting Paid to Benefits

A good deal of time, money and effort is invested in the reintegration of benefit claimants. What is the result? How many recipients of disability, unemployment or social assistance benefit are in principle capable of working but are currently not doing so? How many actually move off benefits and into paid employment each year? Which factors foster their return to the labour market and which impede that process?
These are some of the questions addressed in this study. It reveals that only a limited proportion of the 1.5 million people in the Netherlands in receipt of disability, unemployment or social assistance benefit are eligible for reintegration according to the present criteria. Moreover, the chance of resuming work largely depends on factors over which neither the individual benefit claimant nor policymakers have much influence, such as age and health status.
Based on the study results and taking into account the present recession, this report formulates a number of policy recommendations.