Interesting stats.

[Jackmoves]

SCB(Statistics Sweden) published a pretty interesting report today. Their annual report on how many people aged 20-64 that are provided by social welfare and benefits.

http://www.scb.se/Pages/PressRelease____360930.aspx

As you can see below, we are almost down to the levels of the pre-90s economic crisis(which was huge).

(small spike when the 2008 crisis hit)

The crisis in the 90's saw a rampant increase in the number of residents whom had to be supported by welfare or social benefits, under our current center-right government it has returned to the same percentages as pre 90's crisis.

In 2012 14.4% of the population was given some sort of social benefits compared to 14.8% in 1990. 798 598 adults aged 20 - 64 needed financial supprt 2012.

Most of these was given financial support because of illness or disabilities, these people account for 430,083 of te 798 598, while unemployment and labor market policies accounted for 269,430. Finally we had 99,445 people who were on social assistance(aka what most people would call welfare).

So despite a soaring population increase(due to a baby boom in the 90s + large scale immigration) there is still fewer people that need social benefits, and despite the current recession that has affected us, the numbers are the lowest we have seen in years. In percentage terms, it's even lower than before the old school welfare Sweden when the State lived on borrowed money and unrealistic dreams and promises, that sociaty crashed and burned in the 90's crisis.

This is a concrete example that the center-right alliance's welfare policy has been at least somewhat successful, not even in the deepest recession since 1929 have we actually seen a massive surge of people that need welfare support.

Regardless of ones political opinions this is good grades for the so slandered work line!

In addition to the number of benefit recipients becoming less we have also been able to make the gap between the benefit level and employment larger which encourage self-sufficiency. tax cuts have simply made people keep more money by working. All this while we(and the world) have undergone / are in the longest and deepest economic crisis in many decades... and on top of that we accept a lot of immigrants whom need time to adjust to a new country(and while doing so often need financial support).

Feel free to post similiar stats for your/other countries, I don't think I'm the only one who find things like this not only interesting but also important, we live in a globalized world.