Gestor bibliográfico Crisis y Salud

The global economic crisis has had a major impact on the share of economic resources absorbed by the welfare state. New OECD social expenditure data show that, on average across the OECD, public social spending-to-GDP ratios increased from around 19% in 2007 to 22% of GDP in 2009/11 and estimates for 2012 suggest it has remained high since. In an economic downturn, spending-to-GDP ratios can rise for two reasons: i) because public spending goes up to address the greater need for social support, such as unemployment or housing benefit; and/or ii) GDP grows slowly or declines. Chart 1 disentangles these two effects and shows there was a significant increase in real (adjusted for changes in prices) social spending on average across the OECD. In particular, social spending increased markedly during 2008/09, but has stabilised since. Economic growth broadly follows the opposite trend: it declined from 2008 to 2009, edged up in 2009/10 and stabilised thereafter.