Financial social assistance (social assistance in the narrow sense)

In the social security system, financial social assistance is a last-resort benefit. It is awarded according to the needs established for the person requesting assistance and comprises financial benefits intended to ensure basic subsistence. Social assistance also encompasses measures, especially preventive ones, aimed at combating poverty, including measures encouraging people to achieve financial and personal independence such as social reinsertion measures for assisted people. Social assistance comes under the responsibility of the cantons. The Confederation is only responsible for social assistance in the context of asylum and assistance to Swiss citizens abroad. Each canton has its own social assistance legislation that governs all cantonal and communal social assistance.