This paper follows the framework developed in past OECD studies for analysis of social assistance programmes that aim to provide low-income clients with adequate financial support while simultaneously promoting their reintegration into labour market and, where necessary, mainstream society. Increasingly, jobless citizens in Germany rely on social assistance: a role for which the programme was never intended. Indeed, there are two other programmes that serve the unemployed in Germany, and this paper discusses social assistance in the context of its relationship to Unemployment Insurance and Assistance benefits.

First, this study provides a concise overview of Germany’s public social system, and discusses federal relations inasmuch they have a bearing on the delivery of public assistance benefits. The study discusses the nature of benefits available to social assistance clients in general, and related support measures for particular client-groups, for example, lone parent families ...