JurnalPost.com - Social assistance is a key government instrument for protecting the public from various social risks, including poverty, loss of income, and the inability to meet basic needs. The presence of social assistance is vital, especially for vulnerable groups who require support to maintain a decent standard of living.
Law Number 13 of 2011 concerning the Handling of the Poor emphasizes that poverty reduction must be carried out in a targeted, integrated, and sustainable manner. This means that government efforts should not merely provide aid but also create conditions that allow the public to improve their welfare.
However, in practice, issues arise when aid is provided for years without being followed by an improvement in the recipients' economic capabilities. Aid that should serve as a social safety net risks becoming a source of income that is continuously relied upon if it is not accompanied by access to employment, education, skills training, and business opportunities.
This issue deserves attention given the significant state budget allocated for social protection. Through the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN), the government continues to strive to maintain the purchasing power of low-income households while reducing poverty rates.
At the regional level, the allocation of social assistance is also regulated through several provisions, including Minister of Home Affairs Regulation Number 99 of 2019, which amends the guidelines for granting grants and social assistance sourced from the regional budget (APBD).
The scale of this budgetary commitment shows that social assistance is a crucial part of public welfare policy. However, the success of the program should not be measured solely by the amount of funds distributed or the number of beneficiaries.
A more fundamental question is whether this assistance truly improves the economic conditions of the recipients in a sustainable way.
So, among cash assistance, in-kind aid, and service or empowerment support, which approach is most effective in breaking the cycle of poverty?
Cash Assistance: Flexible, but Requires Oversight
Cash assistance has advantages in terms of flexibility and speed of distribution. Through this scheme, beneficiaries have the freedom to determine their most urgent needs according to their respective household conditions.
The aid funds can be used to purchase food, cover children's education costs, buy medicine, pay for electricity, or meet other essential needs.
Compared to in-kind aid, cash distribution also has the potential to reduce storage and distribution costs. However, this freedom of use also creates challenges in ensuring that the aid is utilized according to the program's objectives.
The issue of social assistance misuse, including alleged links to online gambling practices, has become a concern for the government.
In August 2026, the Ministry of Social Affairs revealed that approximately 1.49 million beneficiary families were identified as having links to online gambling transactions based on data matching with the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK).
Nevertheless, this indication cannot be immediately considered proof that all recipients are misusing the aid. The government still needs to conduct verification to confirm the data links and prevent eligible individuals from losing their assistance due to misidentification.
This situation highlights the importance of oversight, financial management education, and clarification mechanisms in the distribution of cash assistance.
On the other hand, the existence of misuse cases does not mean that cash assistance as a whole is ineffective. In fact, for poor families with varying needs, cash assistance can be a more suitable option if distributed in a targeted manner.
In-Kind Aid: Ensuring Basic Needs Directly
Social assistance in the form of goods has different characteristics. This scheme is generally directed toward meeting specific needs, especially food and basic necessities.
Assistance in the form of rice, eggs, cooking oil, or staple food packages can provide direct benefits to households struggling to meet their daily consumption needs.
Its main advantage lies in the certainty of the type of aid received. The government can determine commodities according to program goals, such as maintaining food security or supporting the nutritional needs of vulnerable populations.
However, the distribution of in-kind aid also has weaknesses.
The government must bear the costs of procurement, storage, packaging, and distribution until the aid reaches the recipients. The wider the distribution area, the greater the logistical challenges that must be faced.
In addition, the risk of declining product quality, damage during shipping, distribution delays, and the mismatch of aid with family needs can reduce the program's effectiveness.
In-kind aid also does not necessarily answer all the economic problems of the recipients. A family receiving rice, for example, still needs money for transportation, education, health, and other needs.
Therefore, in-kind aid is more appropriately viewed as one instrument of social protection, not as the sole solution for overcoming poverty.
Service and Empowerment Support: Investment for Independence
Unlike cash and in-kind aid, which generally provide immediate consumption benefits, service and empowerment support are more oriented toward increasing community capacity in the long term.
This approach includes job skills training, micro-business mentoring, access to capital, improvement of education quality, health services, and the creation of employment opportunities.
Through these programs, the community not only receives aid to meet today's needs but is also equipped with the ability to generate income in the future.
For example, aid recipients who have sewing skills can receive business mentoring, work equipment, and marketing access so they can develop their own sources of income independently.
Similarly, individuals of productive age who do not yet have jobs can be directed to take training according to the needs of the labor market.
In my opinion, the empowerment approach plays the most strategic role in breaking the cycle of poverty sustainably. However, its success depends heavily on the quality of program implementation.
Training that does not match market needs, capital assistance without mentoring, or empowerment activities that are merely ceremonial risk wasting the budget without providing meaningful change.
Furthermore, the benefits of empowerment cannot be felt instantly. This program requires time, consistency, oversight, and evaluation of the recipients' economic progress.
Thus, empowerment should not replace all consumption aid, but rather serve as a complement that helps the community escape economic vulnerability.
The Trap of Social Assistance Dependency
One of the challenges in implementing social assistance is ensuring that beneficiaries experience an improvement in welfare, rather than merely maintaining their status as aid recipients.
In September 2026, the Ministry of Social Affairs revealed data analysis results showing that approximately 4.5 million recipients had been receiving social assistance for more than five years. In fact, 36,460 recipients were recorded as having received aid for more than 18 years.
These findings should serve as a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of social protection programs and the mechanisms for increasing beneficiary self-sufficiency.
Nevertheless, the length of time someone receives aid does not always indicate dependency or low work motivation. Some recipients, such as the elderly, people with certain disabilities, or those with severe economic limitations, do indeed require ongoing social protection.
The issue that needs attention primarily concerns recipients of productive age who actually have the opportunity to increase their income but have not received adequate support to escape poverty.
If aid is provided repeatedly without evaluating economic conditions, mentoring, or access to employment opportunities, the long-term goal of poverty alleviation risks not being achieved optimally.
Therefore, the government needs to distinguish between groups that require long-term social protection and those that have the potential to increase their independence through empowerment programs.
Data Accuracy and Targeting Issues
In addition to the form of aid, another fundamental issue is the accuracy of targeting beneficiaries.
The large social assistance budget will not produce maximum impact if there are still people classified as well-off who receive aid, while families who truly need it are not reached.
In social policy, this condition is known asinclusion errorandexclusion error.
Inclusion error occurs when aid is received by parties who do not meet the criteria. Conversely, exclusion error occurs when people who are actually entitled are not recorded or do not receive aid.
Both of these problems are equally detrimental.
From the government's side, inaccurate targeting can lead to inefficiency in budget usage. Funds that should be allocated to the most needy groups fail to produce benefits according to the objectives.
Meanwhile, from the community's side, data errors can worsen the condition of poor families who lose the opportunity to receive social protection.
The use of the National Social and Economic Single Data (DTSEN) is one of the government's steps to improve program targeting accuracy.
However, the success of this data system still requires periodic updates, verification of community conditions in the field, transparency in determining recipients, and easily accessible complaint mechanisms.
Accurate data is an important foundation so that social assistance is truly received by the people who need it.
A New Direction for Social Assistance: From Protection Toward Independence
To break the cycle of poverty more effectively, the government needs to develop policies that integrate social protection with economic empowerment.
Cash and in-kind aid remain necessary, especially when the community faces emergencies, job losses, rising prices of basic necessities, or other conditions that threaten the fulfillment of basic needs.
However, for recipients who have the capacity to work or run a business, such aid should be accompanied by skills improvement programs, business mentoring, appropriate access to capital, and opportunities to obtain employment.
The World Bank, through various social protection studies, also shows the importance of linking consumption aid with productive interventions so that the community has the opportunity to improve their welfare sustainably.
In its implementation, the government can develop empowerment stages based on the condition of each beneficiary family.
Communities that are still in a very vulnerable condition need to receive protection to meet basic needs. Once their condition is more stable, those with economic potential can be directed to participate in training, develop businesses, or access employment opportunities.
This progress needs to be evaluated periodically using clear indicators, such as income growth, business sustainability, and the ability to meet basic needs independently.
With this approach, the success of social assistance is not only judged by the amount of aid successfully distributed but also by the change in the welfare of the recipient community.
Social Assistance Must Be a Path Out of Poverty
Ultimately, there is no single form of social assistance that is most effective for all community conditions.
Cash assistance is superior in terms of flexibility, in-kind aid is important for meeting specific basic needs, while services and empowerment have great potential to encourage economic independence in the long term.
In my opinion, the most effective approach to breaking the cycle of poverty is to combine all three proportionally based on the needs and capabilities of the beneficiaries.
The government also needs to ensure that every program has clear targets, oversight mechanisms, accurate data collection, and evaluation of the results achieved.
For people who still have the opportunity to increase their income, social assistance should be the first step toward independence. Meanwhile, for groups that require long-term protection, the sustainability of aid remains part of the state's responsibility.
Thus, the main goal of social assistance is not just to ensure that the community receives money or goods, but to help them achieve a more decent life and reduce the risk of poverty sustainably.
Because the success of social assistance is not only seen from how many people receive aid, but also from how many families are finally able to escape poverty and maintain their welfare.
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