| dc.description.abstract | The Public Assistance Act has been implemented in Taiwan since 1980 and revised many times. The latest revision of the Act in 2011 raises the poverty line for more people to get assistance, relaxes the scope of calculating the number of members living in the household and lists household-owned fixed assets, and adds new welfare measures for middle-to-low-income households. The government noted that with the new system implementing the low-income households will increase, and benefit more people. But according to the statistics, the proportion of low-income household to the total household is not over 2%. Still lots of people are not eligible to apply the payments. The Public Assistance law is perceived as safety net role: as long as people fulfilled certain qualifying conditions, they should not be allowed to fall below a certain minimum standard of living. Whether the framework of living support programme in public assistance act can provide the financial help to those people whose income are below a set minimum level and do not meet their need prompted this study.
This thesis has three parts. The first part highlights the regulatory framework of living support programme in Social Assistance Law, as well as how the law is actually enforced in Taiwan. The second part focuses on British regulations which introduced British social security system and the historical development of social assistance. Furthermore, it illustrates the means-tested benefits, such as Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Pension Credit and Housing Benefit. The last part does the comparative analysis between Taiwan’s current living support programme and the British means-tested benefits. The concepts of ＂welfare-to-work＂ and its application can help integrating the Public Assistance Act and Employment Service Act in Taiwan. Besides, the measure of British means test, such as the range of household, the calculation of income, assets and amount of benefit are worthy of learning for Taiwan.
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