In 2023, there were an average of ** million monthly recipients of social security benefits in the United States. This is an increase since 2022, and an increase of nearly *** million in the last ten years.In the United States, Social Security benefits can be paid to eligible retirees, widowers, disabled workers, and their families.

Since 2015, the number of recipients of social welfare in Sweden has decreased steadily. Whereas more than 415,000 people received social welfare in Sweden in 2015, it had sunk below 300,000 in 2022. However, even though the total number of recipients has decreased, the value of the total benefits has increased since 2017.

To help people reach a reasonable standard of living

The social welfare benefits in Sweden are administered by the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen in Swedish). The aim of the benefits is to help people in need to reach a reasonable standard of living through monthly benefits. The amount of the average monthly payment was around 9,100 Swedish kronor in 2022.

 Benefits in foreign and Swedish households

Looking at households with Swedish-born and foreign-born citizens, the most common group of recipients was Swedish-born single men living without children. However, when looking at couples with children, far more foreign-born citizens received social benefits.

This table aims to show the distribution of welfare of persons in the Netherlands, measured by their income. The figures in this table are broken down to different person characteristics.

The population consists of all persons in private households with income on January 1st of the reporting year. In the population for the subject low-income persons, persons in both student households and households with income only for a part of the year have been excluded. The population for the subject economic independence consists of all persons aged from 15 to the OAP-age in private households with income on January 1st of the reporting year, except for students and pupils.

Data available from: 2011

Status of the figures: The figures for 2011 to 2022 are final. The figures for 2023 are preliminary.

Changes as of November 2024: The preliminary figures for 2023 have been added.

When will new figures be published? New figures will be published in the fall of 2025.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Social and Welfare Statistics (previously Social Expenditure Database) available via the UK Data Service includes the following databases:

The OECD Social Expenditure Database (SOCX) has been developed in order to serve a growing need for indicators of social policy. It includes reliable and internationally comparable statistics on public and mandatory and voluntary private social expenditure at programme level. SOCX provides a unique tool for monitoring trends in aggregate social expenditure and analysing changes in its composition. The main social policy areas are as follows: old age, survivors, incapacity-related benefits, health, family, active labour market programmes, unemployment, housing, and other social policy areas.

The Income Distribution database contains comparable data on the distribution of household income, providing both a point of reference for judging the performance of any country and an opportunity to assess the role of common drivers as well as drivers that are country-specific. They also allow governments to draw on the experience of different countries in order to learn "what works best" in narrowing income disparities and poverty. But achieving comparability in this field is also difficult, as national practices differ widely in terms of concepts, measures, and statistical sources.

The Child Wellbeing dataset compare 21 policy-focussed measures of child well-being in six areas, chosen to cover the major aspects of children’s lives: material well being; housing and environment; education; health and safety; risk behaviours; and quality of school life.

The Better Life Index: There is more to life than the cold numbers of GDP and economic statistics. This Index allows you to compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.

The Social Expenditure data were first provided by the UK Data Service in March 2004.

The information on the living allowance for low-income elderly in social welfare statistics is presented on the Social Affairs Bureau's website under "Statistical Data" and "Announcement of the release schedule for statistical data."

The social welfare benefits in Sweden aims to help people in need to reach a reasonable standard of living through monthly monetary benefits. The average monthly benefits increased from 2013 until 2021, but fell somewhat in 2022. In 2022, the average amount paid out per month was 9,135 Swedish kronor. In 2021, the total expenses of social welfare benefits were at almost 12 billion Swedish kronor.

Decreasing number of recipients

In 2021, around 340,000 individuals received social welfare benefits in Sweden. The number of recipients has decreased steadily since 2015, even though the total amount has increased.

 More common to receive benefits for households with children

The most common type of household receiving benefits were single woman households with children. Almost 14 percent of all single-woman households with children received social welfare benefits in 2021, and eight percent of all households consisting of single men with children received benefits. In general, the share of receiving households was higher for the ones with children than those without.

On the assumption that poor people migrate to obtain better welfare benefits, the magnet hypothesis predicts that a state's poverty rate increases when its welfare benefit rises faster than benefits in surrounding states. The benefit competition hypothesis proposes that states lower welfare benefits to avoid attracting the poor from neighboring states. Previous investigations, which yield support for these propositions, suffer from weaknesses in model specification and methodology. We correct these deficiencies in a simultaneous equation model including a state's poverty rate and its benefit level for AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) as endogenous variables. We estimate the model using pooled annual data for the American states from 1960 to 1990, and find that a state's poverty rate does not jump significantly when its welfare payments outpace benefits in neighboring states. Neither is there any evidence of vigorous benefit competition among states. States respond to decreases in neighboring states.

Employment, economy and welfare including labor force population, labor force participation rate, labor force participation rate - junior high school and below, labor force participation rate - senior high school (vocational), labor force participation rate - college and above, employed population, unemployment rate, unemployment rate - junior high school and below, unemployment rate - senior high school (vocational), unemployment rate - college and above, number of registered companies (gender of responsible person), number of foreign workers in industry and social welfare, number of low-income households - population, number of low-income households - households (gender of household head), number of low-income indigenous households - population, number of low-income indigenous households - households (gender of household head), number of people with disabilities, ratio of people with disabilities to the total population, number of solitary elderly people in need of care, number of insured persons under agricultural health insurance, number of insured persons under labor insurance, number of elderly farmers receiving welfare subsidies, number of actually employed persons with disabilities through quota employment, number of living allowances for people with disabilities, number of students with disabilities receiving educational subsidies, number of beneficiaries of living allowances for elderly with middle and low income, number of recipients of special care allowances for elderly with middle and low income, number of households in special circumstances (gender of parents), number of volunteers in social welfare services, registered homeless population, number of profit-making enterprises - by gender of responsible person, representative or manager, number of union members, number of first-time recipients of parental leave allowances for child care.

The Global Welfare Dataset (GLOW) is a cross-national panel dataset that aims at facilitating comparative social policy research on the Global North and Global South. The database includes 381 variables on 61 countries from years between 1989 and 2015. The database has four main categories of data: welfare, development, economy and politics.The data is the result of an original data compilation assembled by using information from several international and domestic sources. Missing data was supplemented by domestic sources where available. We sourced data primarily from these international databases:Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity – ASPIRE (World Bank)Government Finance Statistics (International Monetary Fund)Social Expenditure Database – SOCX (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)Social Protection Statistics – ESPROSS (Eurostat)Social Security Inquiry (International Labour Organization)Social Security Programs Throughout the World (Social Security Administration)Statistics on Income and Living Conditions – EU-SILC (European Union)World Development Indicators (World Bank)However, much of the welfare data from these sources are not compatible between all country cases. We conducted an extensive review of the compatibility of the data and computed compatible figures where possible. Since the heart of this database is the provision of social assistance across a global sample, we applied the ASPIRE methodology in order to build comparable indicators across European and Emerging Market economies. Specifically, we constructed indicators of average per capita transfers and coverage rates for social assistance programs for all the country cases not included in the World Bank’s ASPIRE dataset (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.)For details, please see:https://glow.ku.edu.tr/about

This paper provides evidence that replacing minimum unemployment benefits with a basic income of equal size has minor employment effects at best. We examine an experiment in Finland in which 2,000 benefit recipients were randomized to receive a monthly basic income. The experiment lowered participation tax rates by 23pp for full-time employment. Despite the considerable increase in work incentives, days in employment remained statistically unchanged in the first year of the experiment. Moreover, even though all job search requirements were waived, participation in reemployment services remained high.

The number of people receiving social benefits in Denmark decreased from 2013. Moreover, there were significantly more people from non-western countries than people from western countries who received social benefits between 2012 and 2022. In 2022, ****** people with a non-western origin and around ***** with a western origin received social benefits in Denmark. The majority of social benefits recipients had Danish origin though. The Danish government implemented a reform in 2014 that tightened the conditions for receiving social benefits.

Graph and download economic data for Government current expenditures: Income security: Welfare and social services (G160371A027NBEA) from 1959 to 2023 about social assistance, expenditures, government, income, services, GDP, and USA.

Data gathered from a variety of federal agencies and private organizations are contained in this collection which provides county statistics. Included in CO_STAT 1 are all data for counties published in the 1983 County and City Data Book and the 1982 State and Metropolitan Area Data Book, as well as a number of statistics not previously published. There are several levels of data (e.g., persons, housing units, and local governments). The collection supplies information on the following general areas: agriculture, banking, crime, education, elections, government, households, health, housing, labor, land area, manufactures, money income, personal income, population, poverty, retail trade, service industries, social insurance and human services, savings and loan associations, veterans, vital statistics, wholesale trade, and journey to work. Records are included for each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia as well as 3,137 counties or county equivalents.

Economic research on the safety net has evolved significantly over time, moving away from a near exclusive focus on the negative incentive effects of means-tested assistance on employment, earnings, marriage and fertility to include examination of the potential positive benefits of such programs to children. Initially, this research on benefits to children focused on short run impacts, but as we accumulated knowledge about skill production and better data became available, the research evolved further to include important long run economic outcomes such as employment, earnings and mortality. Once the positive long-run benefits to children are considered, many safety net programs are cost-effective. However, the current government practice of limiting the time horizon for cost-benefit calculations of major policy initiatives reduces the influence of the most current economic research on the long run benefits. We conclude with a discussion of why the rate of child poverty in the US is still higher than most OECD countries and how research on children and the safety net can better inform policy-making going forward.

United States US: Survey Mean Consumption or Income per Capita: Bottom 40% of Population: Annualized Average Growth Rate data was reported at 1.310 % in 2016. United States US: Survey Mean Consumption or Income per Capita: Bottom 40% of Population: Annualized Average Growth Rate data is updated yearly, averaging 1.310 % from Dec 2016 (Median) to 2016, with 1 observations. United States US: Survey Mean Consumption or Income per Capita: Bottom 40% of Population: Annualized Average Growth Rate data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Poverty. The growth rate in the welfare aggregate of the bottom 40% is computed as the annualized average growth rate in per capita real consumption or income of the bottom 40% of the population in the income distribution in a country from household surveys over a roughly 5-year period. Mean per capita real consumption or income is measured at 2011 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) using the PovcalNet (http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet). For some countries means are not reported due to grouped and/or confidential data. The annualized growth rate is computed as (Mean in final year/Mean in initial year)^(1/(Final year - Initial year)) - 1. The reference year is the year in which the underlying household survey data was collected. In cases for which the data collection period bridged two calendar years, the first year in which data were collected is reported. The initial year refers to the nearest survey collected 5 years before the most recent survey available, only surveys collected between 3 and 7 years before the most recent survey are considered. The final year refers to the most recent survey available between 2011 and 2015. Growth rates for Iraq are based on survey means of 2005 PPP$. The coverage and quality of the 2011 PPP price data for Iraq and most other North African and Middle Eastern countries were hindered by the exceptional period of instability they faced at the time of the 2011 exercise of the International Comparison Program. See PovcalNet for detailed explanations.; ; World Bank, Global Database of Shared Prosperity (GDSP) circa 2010-2015 (http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/brief/global-database-of-shared-prosperity).; ; The comparability of welfare aggregates (consumption or income) for the chosen years T0 and T1 is assessed for every country. If comparability across the two surveys is a major concern for a country, the selection criteria are re-applied to select the next best survey year(s). Annualized growth rates are calculated between the survey years, using a compound growth formula. The survey years defining the period for which growth rates are calculated and the type of welfare aggregate used to calculate the growth rates are noted in the footnotes.

recipients sex social-protection social-protection-benefits social-protection-payments social-protection-schemes social-welfare social-welfare-benefits social-welfare-payments social-welfare-schemes

This compilation of data, which was gathered from a variety of federal agencies and private organizations, provides information for the United States as a whole, the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and all 3,139 counties and county equivalents (defined as of January 1, 1983). Data are included for the following general areas: age, ancestry, agriculture, banking, business, construction, crime, education, elections, government, health, households, housing, labor, land area, manufactures, money income, personal income, population, poverty, retail trade, service industries, social insurance and human services, veterans, vital statistics, wholesale trade, and journey to work.

Social assistance rate by socio-demographic characteristics in the canton of Zug, year 2022.

The social assistance rate indicates the proportion of the permanent resident population receiving social assistance. The social assistance rate does not take into account persons from the asylum or refugee sector.

(SOURCE: Federal Office of Statistics, Social Welfare Statistics)

Social welfare statistics_ related business annual statistical data is presented on the [Department of Social Affairs Statistical Data Related Business Annual Statistics] website.

The welfare magnet hypothesis holds that immigrants are likely to relocate to regions with generous welfare benefits. Although this assumption has motivated extensive reforms to immigration policy and social programs, the empirical evidence remains contested. In this study, we assess detailed administrative records from Switzerland covering the full population of social assistance recipients between 2005 and 2015. By leveraging local variation in cash transfers and exogenous shocks to benefit levels, we identify how benefits shape within-country residential decisions. We find limited evidence that immigrants systematically move to localities with higher benefits. The lack of significant welfare migration within a context characterized by high variance in benefits and low barriers to movement suggests that the prevalence of this phenomenon may be overstated. These findings have important implications in the European setting, where subnational governments often possess discretion over welfare and parties frequently mobilize voters around the issue of “benefit tourism.”