János Betkó is a policy advisor on Income at the municipality of Nijmegen and an external PhD candidate in Sociology at Radboud University. He is now in the process of completing his dissertation which, briefly summarised, is about the ‘Nijmegen welfare benefits experiment’ conducted between December 2017 and January 2020. This was an experiment that ran simultaneously in other Dutch cities, and which aimed to answer two questions. First, can we treat people on benefits differently, especially regarding the demands we make on them? And second, what can this new approach achieve?
Experiment Participation Act (Participatiewet)
Those on benefits normally have obligations when it comes to applying for jobs (how often per week or month) and accepting suitable work. There are also strict rules about how much additional income can be earned and for how long without this affecting the amount of benefits. Failure to meet these obligations may result in a fine.
The ‘experiment Participation Act,’ as it is officially called, deployed various interventions in six cities. Briefly summarised, the variants were:
- A waiver of reintegration obligations, where participants could take action themselves and also earn a little more on the side for an extended period of time;
- More intensive guidance and support tailored to the needs of the participants using group coaching, based more on the participants’ preferences. Again, the rules on additional earnings were relaxed;
- A control group for whom nothing changed in terms of rules, but who were surveyed at the same times as the other groups.
At the time of the experiment, about 8,500 residents of Nijmegen were on benefits. Of this group, over 300 participated in the experiment: each variant had about 120 participants.
More than transition to paid employment
The results of this experiment have been reported previously, both for Nijmegen and for all six participating cities. Regarding the transition to paid employment, the new approach appeared to have only a modest effect. For his dissertation, however, Betkó also looked at other effects, such as trust in government: did that improve with the new approach? In early August, Betkó and colleagues published an article that answered that question. And the answer was, yes it does. ‘The new approach to welfare recipients, based less on distrust and more on trust, has led to more trust in local government. However, trust in the national government, for example, did not improve, nor did trust in the social environment.'
Giving trust and receiving trust in return
That may seem like a modest result, but Betkó is pleased. ‘Trust in the government, in politics, is important for citizenship, for citizens wanting to contribute to society. It’s fascinating to see that trust in local government, the layer closest to the people, can be enhanced with such an experiment. Our study showed that policies based on trust rather than mistrust can help boost that trust among citizens. And that seems to me to be a message of importance in the Netherlands, which is traditionally a high-trust country but where in recent years trust in government has declined significantly, and where we are now facing a number of crises at once that are further undermining that trust.’
Interestingly, Betkó also found that participants became even more confident in local politics regardless their expectations about the effect of the experiment on their labour market participation. ‘Whether they thought they would find a job or volunteer work as part of the experiment mattered less than whether they felt that they were being treated respectfully and were being heard.’
Bureaucratic procedures
Are these outcomes sufficient to opt for an approach based less on mistrust and penalties and more on trust and a little more room to manoeuvre, for example being able to earn some extra money? Betkó: ‘If you only look at the transition to paid employment, you can conclude that the new approach does not yield enough, so just leave things the way they are. But you can also say: if that difference isn't very large, but you do see a substantial effect on a factor like trust, then the new approach might be preferable.’
On top of that, the current system of monitoring and imposing fines involves a lot of work and costs for the municipality. If the new approach requires less work, there might be something to be said for that as well. Betko: ‘In addition, amongst people on welfare benefits you will find a relatively high number with poor physical health, mental health issues or inadequate literacy. These are all factors that can prevent them from coping effectively with the bureaucratic procedures they must go through. If something can be done about it – and the municipality cannot do it alone, because the Participation Act and how it is now being implemented comes from the government – perhaps we shouldn't leave it undone.'
Photo by Hannah Busing via Unsplash