Social protection 2.0 : unemployment and minimum income benefits

This report focuses on unemployment and minimum income benefits for people of working age. Individuals with short or no employment records (mainly young people), the self-employed, those with non-standard working arrangements, and the long-term unemployed are often not entitled to higher-tier, or any, unemployment benefits. No Member State was identified where more than 80% of those entitled to minimum income benefits receive them. Benefit recipients at higher risk of having an inadequate income include those without access to social housing in areas with high housing costs, unemployed individuals whose most recent job was low paid and the long-term unemployed people. The report also investigates the rejection of applications (frequently, around 30% are rejected), the digitalisation of application processes (most common for unemployment benefits) and economic activation requirements (typically, 1-6% of benefit recipients annually are sanctioned for not complying with activity requirements) and service entitlements.