Welfare Conditionality as Administrative Burden: The Perceived Costs of (Potential) Sanctions and How Welfare Claimants Cope With It

ABSTRACT In many welfare programmes, non‐compliance with requirements such as attending appointments with caseworkers or providing evidence of job search efforts can lead to (partial) benefit reductions. Sanctions have consequences for labour market outcomes, but their impact on welfare claimants is broader. Drawing on research into administrative burden, street‐level bureaucracy and citizens' behaviour in dealing with public administration, this study examines the costs that welfare claimants perceive in relation to welfare conditionality, and how they respond to and cope with these costs. The study focuses on the German basic income support for jobseekers, a minimum income scheme that serves as the primary social protection system for needy working‐age individuals and their families. The empirical basis is interviews with welfare claimants. We show that behavioural requirements that lead to benefit reductions in the event of non‐compliance are associated with compliance costs, learning costs and psychological costs. Coping with welfare conditionality involves behavioural coping, such as negotiation, learning and occasional resistance. Cognitive responses that rely on claimants distancing themselves from sanctions and downplaying the associated personal consequences are an alternative way of coping. Cognitive and communicative skills are important resources for coping with welfare conditionality, but barriers may hinder claimants from using them in interactions with the job centre. These barriers may arise, for example, from mental health problems, exhaustion or discouragement.