2.8.2 Don't the Nordic states have huge welfare expenditures?
Description
This article is from the Nordic countries FAQ, by Antti Lahelma and Johan Olofsson, with numerous contributions by others.
2.8.2 Don't the Nordic states have huge welfare expenditures?
"Welfare" in this context has nothing to do with welfare as the word
is understood in the USA. It stands for a word ("välfärd" as spelled
in Swedish) approximately translated by the intention to control
un-employment and poverty by governmental regulation and actions. This
is not a particular phenomenon for Scandinavia, or for recent times,
but have to greater or lesser extent been on the program for nearly
all parties ruling in the industrialized Europe (i.e. for over a
hundred years).
Subsidies to industries have been popular among nearly all parties,
for instance. The health care system, the tax financed school system
(including student loans) and the mandatory participation in schemes
for loss of income at retirement, disability, sickness or unemployment
has got a solid support by something like 90% of the politicians and
95% of the Nordic voters. The differences regard adjustments, not the
idea as such.
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