Eligible but Not Entitled: The Distinctiveness of Non-Entitlement Policy Designs at the Frontline

This paper explores the distinctive dynamics of entitlement versus non-entitlement social programmes, focusing on how this distinction influences frontline workers' management of access to social provisions. While much of the existing literature emphasises the macro-level impacts of these alternative policy designs, this study focuses on their operational dimensions by examining how frontline workers steer users' access in each type of programme. Drawing on qualitative interviews with social workers in Israel, the findings reveal how this foundational design choice creates two starkly different operational contexts that, in turn, determine the nature of frontline discretion. By ensuring that resources meet demand, the entitlement framework creates conditions that allow for professional discretion aimed at upholding statutory rights. In contrast, the non-entitlement context is defined by fixed resource limits that generate inherent competition and uncertainty, which in turn compels frontline workers to develop rationing discretion. This shifts significant distributive decision-making from policymakers to the frontline, placing workers in a contradictory role as both advocates and rationers and intensifying disparities in access. The paper contributes to the literature on street-level bureaucracy and benefit take-up by demonstrating how a top-down feature of policy design fundamentally shapes the nature of frontline work and the realisation of social rights.