From Welfare to Workfare: also for Belgium?

A political debate is gathering whether Belgium’s unemployment insurance should limit the duration of its benefits and require the unemployed to work in return for their benefits. Marc De Vos explains that President Clinton’s decade old welfare reform introduced similar measures in the United States. Limiting the duration of benefits and requiring the beneficiaries to perform services in return has had a genuine activating effect in the US, but also because of their combination with other reforms.