Social benefits at Laender level

The social benefits at Laender level that are presented here are social assistance, help for people with a disability and the (provincial) long-term care allowance. The social benefits of the federal provinces furthermore include juvenile welfare with its various programmes and institutions as well as a variety of aid and assistance measures concerned with supporting families, women and employees. Statistics relating to social assistance and help for people with a disability are based on the annual returns forwarded to STATISTICS AUSTRIA by the offices of the provincial governments; the data on the long-term care allowance is taken from the Report of the Working Group for Long-Term Care that is published annually by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Social Affairs.

In contrast to the long-term care allowance statistics (where standardised claim and benefits rules and an institutionalised federal/ Laender cooperation offer favourable conditions for data acquisition), the statistics relating to social assistance and help for people with a disability exhibit a range of quality defects concerning the completeness, accuracy, validity and comparability of the data collected. The minimal informative value of these statistics also results not least from the fact that data concerning the socio-economic, demographic and familial background of the benefit recipients, the reasons for their need and the length of time they have received benefits is not collected at all.

The role of social assistance is to allow needy persons to live in dignity. Need for help exists if the requirements for living cannot be met by one’s own abilities and meas (own working capacity, income and assets) or maintenance from the family or by a statutory social insurance claim or another subsidiary claim. Aside from the key basic principles, some areas of social assistance exhibit significant differences in terms of claim requirements, benefits and the organisational and funding structures. Social assistance includes cash benefits, benefits in kind and services for securing the necessities of life, in the case of illness or when care is needed, aid in supporting the family/household, assistance towards education and the ability of gainful employment, help with establishing an economic basis of living, relief of exceptional emergencies and, finally, assistance by covering the cost of a (simple) funeral. Social assistance is granted to persons in private households resp. outside of institutions (“extramural” social assistance) and in institutions or homes (“stationary” social assistance).

The role of help for people with a disability is to give disabled people the opportunity to live an independent and self-directed life. The claim requirements and basic principles are similar to those relating to social assistance, and here too the legislative situation and implementation in practice differ significantly between the Laender. The help for people with a disability includes medical care (e.g. absorption of the costs of medication, home and institutional nursing), socio-pedagogical support (e.g. educational guidance, partial payments for accommodation and school education), social welfare support (e.g. occupational and work therapy, care provided by social services) and job-related integration assistance (e.g. covering the costs for training, enrolment, retraining and supplementary training, protected workplaces).

Like the beneficiaries of the federal long-term care allowance, persons in need of care within the area of competence of the Laender have a legal right to the care allowance, which is awarded based on care needs (regardless of income and assets) at seven levels. The care allowance acts of the provinces are formulated analogously to the Federal Long-term Care Allowance Act; in contrast to social assistance and help for people with a disability, there are therefore uniform claim requirements and benefit levels throughout the country.