In 2023, there were an average of 67 million monthly recipients of social security benefits in the United States. This is an increase since 2022, and an increase of nearly ten 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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, 14,000 people with a non-western origin and around 2,000 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.

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

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."

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, services, income, GDP, and USA.

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.

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.

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.

In 2023 there were approximately 24.5 million male retirees receiving social security benefits, compared with about 25.7 million female recipients. The number of female recipients surpassed that of male retirees for the first time in 2016.In the United States, Social Security benefits can be paid to eligible retirees, widowers, disabled workers, and their families.

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.

This table provides information on the number of young people aged 0 to 25 living in welfare families. For the demarcation of a social assistance family, we looked at social assistance benefits under the Participation Act or social assistance-related benefits under the Income Provision for Older and Partially Disabled Unemployed Workers Act (IOAW), the Income Provision for Older and Partially Disabled Former Self-Employed Persons Act (IOAZ), the Self-Employed Persons Assistance Decree (Bbz) and the Work and Income Artists Act (WWIK).

Benefits under the Temporary Bridging Scheme for Self-Employed Entrepreneurs (Tozo) are not included in this table. The Tozo provides self-employed people with an additional living allowance and a loan for working capital to deal with liquidity problems caused by the coronavirus crisis.

This table shows figures (31 December of the reference year) for young people living in welfare families, with a possible breakdown by region (including municipality level), type of household and the age of the youngest child in the household.

In order to show how young people in the Netherlands are doing, the National Youth Monitor describes more than 70 topics in addition to this topic. The topics are called indicators.

Data available from 2007.

Status of figures The figures for all years are final.

Changes as of 26 June 2024: None, this is a new table. This table is the successor of: Young people in welfare families; 0 to 25 year olds, 2023 region. See paragraph 3.

When will there be new figures? New figures are expected in the second quarter of 2025. The table is then replaced by a new table with the then most recent area layouts.

This report provides information about the demographics of children and parents at steps in the child welfare system. It is produced in compliance with Local Law 132 of 2022.

In 2023, the average monthly payment to Social Security recipients was 1,767 U.S. dollars, an increase of around 80 U.S. dollars compared with 2022.In the United States, Social Security benefits can be paid to eligible retirees, widowers, disabled workers, and their families.

This table aims to show the distribution of welfare of private households, measured by their income, expenditures and wealth. The figures in this table are broken down to different household characteristics. The population consists of all private households with income on January 1st of the reporting year. In the population for the subject low-income households, both student households and households with income only for a part of the year have been excluded. 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 1 November 2024: Figures for 2022 are finalized. Preliminary figures for 2023 are added. Changes as of 9 February 2022: The preliminary figures for 2020 concerning ‘Mean expenditures’ have been added. The topic 'Mean expenditures' only contains 5-annual data, for 2015 and 2020. The data for 2015 for this topic were still preliminary and are now final. When will new figures be published? New figures will be published in the fall of 2025.

Graph and download economic data for SNAP Benefits Recipients in Baltimore city, MD (CBR24510MDA647NCEN) from 1989 to 2022 about Baltimore City, MD; Baltimore; SNAP; nutrition; MD; food stamps; benefits; food; and USA.

Brazil SSF: Cash Basis: Benefits from General Social Welfare data was reported at 73,301.893 BRL mn in Dec 2024. This records a decrease from the previous number of 73,462.560 BRL mn for Nov 2024. Brazil SSF: Cash Basis: Benefits from General Social Welfare data is updated monthly, averaging 21,343.162 BRL mn from Jan 1996 (Median) to Dec 2024, with 348 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 110,775.542 BRL mn in May 2024 and a record low of 2,931.000 BRL mn in Jan 1996. Brazil SSF: Cash Basis: Benefits from General Social Welfare data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Labor and Social Security. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Brazil – Table BR.FA011: Social Security Fund: Cash Flow Statement. Regime Geral da Previdência Social (RGPS)