Less aid for employment, more for health: spending on social protection continued to increase in all the countries of the European Union in 2021, driven by the amounts committed for vaccination and anti-Covid.
According to the social protection panorama published this Thursday by the statistics department of the social ministries (Drees), benefits increased by 2.4% in France in 2021 and by 3% on average in the European Union, after an “increase exceptional” in 2020 of 6.9%. and 8.3% respectively.
France continues to be the Union country that, in relation to gross domestic product, devotes the most money to its social protection, with 33.3% of its GDP, ahead of Austria (31.8%) and Italy (31 .5%), while the European average is 29%.
In terms of benefits per inhabitant, with 12,350 euros per year, however, Austria (14,500), Germany (14,000) and Denmark (13,850, European average of 10,150 euros) surpass it.
Covid-19 vaccination and screening
The increase in spending on social protection was driven in 2021 in France by vaccination and screening for Covid-19, exceeding the health risk (+9.6%) to the items intended for employment protection (-18.2 %), with the decrease in partial unemployment .
The coverage of the risk of poverty and social exclusion also advanced (+6.7%), especially at the end of 2021, with the implementation of the first measures to deal with the start of the rise in inflation.
Resources are also growing, and even more than expenses: the increase is 5.2% in one year. It is “the result of a strong increase in social contributions and assigned taxes and rights, caused by the recovery of wages and consumption,” says the DREES.
Thanks to these good inflows, the French social protection deficit has been reduced to 18 billion euros in 2021, after a record of 49 billion in 2020.
Source: BFM TV
