Germany spends slightly more on social security than Nordic countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland, which are considered role models in this area. Therefore, by 2023, 41 percent of total government spending in the country will be spent on social benefits such as pensions, health, care and unemployment insurance as well as social benefits such as citizen’s allowance. In Scandinavian countries the figure reaches 40 percent.
This emerged from a study carried out by the German Economic Institute (IW) linked to employers, written by the “Rheinische Post” based on preliminary reports. The publication comes just before budget week in the Bundestag and important coalition negotiations on the pension package.
However, when measured in terms of economic output, the Nordic countries are still ahead of Germany in terms of social spending. At the same time, according to the study, the Federal Republic spends significantly less on education, amounting to 9.3 percent of total spending and is at the bottom in the comparison of public investment at 5.9 percent.
