Social spending remains higher than before Covid
Expenditure on social benefits in Switzerland fell by 2% in 2022 compared with the previous year, but remained 6.7% above the pre-Covid level. An all-time high was recorded in 2020 during the pandemic.
The government’s expenditure on social benefits will reach almost CHF208 billion ($240 billion) in 2022, a drop of CHF4.2 billion (2%) compared with 2021, according to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) in a final overall statement published on Monday. This figure represents 23.2% of GDP.
This fall is mainly due to two distinct factors. On the one hand, the post-Covid economic recovery led to a reduction of CHF7.4 billion in unemployment benefits. On the other, the general rise in prices has reduced the real value of social benefits paid to households, the FSO said in a press release.
+ Swiss government wants spending cuts across the board
This general trend is also observed in the rest of Europe. On the other hand, while health-related benefits fell in most European countries, they rose by 3.2% in Switzerland, to CHF2.1 billion.
The FSO explains this increase by higher spending on compulsory health insurance and more sickness absence from work. Services relating to screening and vaccination, on the other hand, fell back to almost pre-pandemic levels.
Benefits for housing and integration of the most disadvantaged people, including refugees from Ukraine and elsewhere, surged in many Eastern and Southern European countries. In Switzerland, the increase is more modest, with 4.3% for housing assistance and 10.5% for combating social exclusion. However, spending in these areas represents only a marginal proportion (3.5%) of overall social benefits, according to the FSO.
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.