"If Europe today accounts for just over 7 per cent of the world’s population, produces around 25 per cent of global GDP and has to finance 50 per cent of global social spending, then it’s obvious that it will have to work very hard to maintain its prosperity and way of life."
Wonder what 'extremist' right-wing 'demagogue' said this? Why, Angela Merkel...
Read the full story here.
But here is some data from the OECD
Estimates of real public social spending and real GDP (Index 2007=100) and public social spending in percentage of GDP (right scale), 2007-2012
Projected public social spending as a % GDP and as a % “trend GDP” and real GDP, 1980-2012 (select countries):
Source for above: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/is-the-european-welfare-state-really-more-expensive_5kg2d2d4pbf0-en
And here is the latest OECD data (2009, published 2012):
Back in 2009, Ireland ranked 18th in the OECD in terms of private spending on Social Expenditures as % of GDP and 14th in the OECD in terms of public spending. We ranked 15th in terms of overall Social Expenditures. In comparison, Swiss spent 19.4% of their GDP, against Ireland spending 25.8%.
Setting aside Irish case, Ms Merkel has a point. EA12 average public spending is 26.8% of GDP against the OECD average of 22.1%, while private spending average is 2.4% against the OECD 2.5%. In other words, EA12 spend more publicly, less privately, on social expenditure.
ReplyDeleteIf the average percentage gap between GDP and GNP of OECD countries was applied to Ireland our place in the above tables would I think make sense.
But it does n't .Using a figure closer to Ireland's GNP would be better I presume.
Secondly social welfare expenditures here are around 60% of tax revenue.I don't know what they amount to in the other OECD countries but it would make an interesting comparison.