Little scholarly attention has been paid to variations in local welfare provisions and how they frame beneficiaries’ welfare-work trajectories. This is unfortunate since increasingly a varied menu of services is provided locally and welfare-work trajectories unfold in a local context. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this debate by examining the welfare-work trajectories among young social assistance recipients in Norwegian municipalities and how they are related to the local setting and in particular the organization of the local welfare office.