Response to interpellation 2023/24:792 on economic equality
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M argues that the government is actively working for economic equality through the job tax credit 1 and that economic reforms have increased women's disposable incomes more than men's 1. M believes that tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners primarily benefit women 2 3 and that investments in welfare benefit women 1 3. M wants to lower taxes for workers by prioritizing welfare, defense, police, and the justice system 3. M argues that equality also involves combating violence against women 4. S argues that economic equality is a matter of justice 5 and that taxes drive inequality 6. S claims that women are hit hardest by inflation 5 and that cuts in public spending affect women disproportionately 7 6. S wants to provide more resources to welfare 6.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Madam Speaker! Eva Lindh has asked me if I have conducted an analysis of how the job tax credit and the referred proposals affect equality and if I can, in that case, report on the result. She has also asked whether the government will conduct a new analysis of how the overall budget, for example when it concerns reforms in the tax and transfer systems and a reduction of state grants to welfare, affects the distribution of economic resources between women and men in 2024. Finally, she has asked if I have conducted an analysis of how equality is affected by the cuts in our shared welfare and if I can, in that case, report on the outcome.
I welcome the member's engagement in the issue. The Government is actively working to achieve the goal of economic equality: that women and men shall have the same opportunities and conditions regarding paid work that provides economic independence throughout life.
The proposition on the job tax credit includes an analysis of the effects on economic equality. This analysis shows that the short-term effects of the job tax credit increase women's and men's disposable income by approximately the same percentage. The reinforced job tax credit is also a key to getting more people into work. That more people come into work is important, not least for foreign-born women who today stand far from the labor market and are particularly hard hit by the economic situation.
The Government accounted in the budget bill for 2024 for the effect of the Government's economic reforms up to and including the budget bill for 2024. It is stated there that the cumulative effect of the Government's economic reforms so far during the mandate period increases women's disposable income by a higher percentage than men's. The Government will return with an updated account in the budget bill for 2025.
In the budget for 2024, the government increased the state grants to the municipal sector by almost 16 billion kronor, around 40 percent of the reform space. It is a very large investment that has contributed to strengthening the welfare. In the year-end budget, the government allocated an additional 6 billion kronor to the regions and healthcare. Women use welfare services from the municipal sector to a greater extent than men. The government's investments therefore benefited women to a greater extent than men.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! Equality is about all people, regardless of gender, having the same opportunities to influence society and their own lives. It is actually a question of justice. All people have equal value.
Economic equality is one of the most important issues when it comes to equality. It is important for improving the conditions for all Swedes. It is also important for Sweden's economy. When more people contribute to the economy, everyone wins.
In times of crisis, it is most often women and children who are hit hardest. The difficult period with high inflation and recession has affected many, but most of all those who are already stretching every krona. Women are in the majority among them. Women have lower wages and less secure employment, and they more often work part-time. Particularly affected are single mothers, retired women, and women born outside of Europe who lack their own income. They must cope with increased food prices and other living costs even though they already had it tough financially from the start. Last winter, a report was released showing that many single mothers took from their savings for basic expenses and that at least 40 percent were forced to borrow to afford putting food on the table for their children.
According to law, the government is obliged to investigate and report on how the conducted policy affects us in Sweden. In order for us to know what the effects of the initiatives being implemented will be, a clear and complete gender equality analysis linked to the budget is required. The analysis the government has made in the 2024 budget has been questioned.
In the Minister for Finance's response, which I thank her for, she refers to this distribution and equality analysis and that the answers to my questions can be read there. If only that were so. It sounds nice that we can all look there, but I raised this in the spring and choose to do so again because there are still questions. I think that right should be right, and since it is difficult to see how the budget affects us in Sweden, it needs to become clearer. This is also an appeal for the future.
Reality does not look as bright as the Finance Minister paints it.
An example of why it is not possible to read in the budget how this affects equality is that the analysis is merged for two years: 7 billion kronor as a consequence of the government's reforms in 2023 and 5 billion in 2024. This makes it far too difficult to read out how this year's budget can affect it.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Madam Speaker! I thank Eva Lindh for the interpellation, and I truly mean it. I am glad that we get to talk about such important issues on this beautiful late summer day in Stockholm.
Equality is something that both the interpellor and I have spoken about previously and are passionate about. On one hand, it is fantastic with all those who have gone before us. In 150 years, equality in Sweden has improved enormously. In 1860, Sweden was so poor that we even received aid from other countries, and the inequality was great. Since then, a lot has happened. On the other hand, there is much left to do in various areas.
Let me be a bit personal. Of course, it is about politics, but also about how we as individuals live and how we as parents act. I have three sons myself, and my husband and I have thought very much about how we should influence them to think about equality. I believe it is important that every parent does so. Teachers must also think about how they treat girls and boys in the classroom. There are many areas where we can, in different ways, strengthen women and increase equality.
Now it is about the economy. Even here, it is enormously important that the politics takes responsibility. During the two years I have held this job, it has been enormously important for me that we have been able to push down inflation. The increasing costs hit, just as the interpellor said, most of all those who in different ways have squeezed finances, and often it is women. Therefore, during this year, we have extended the housing allowance for families with children and raised the level by 40 percent. We know that it hits most of all those women who have the smallest margins.
That we now and many times previously have lowered the tax for, for example, nursing assistants has strengthened their finances, what they have been able to keep in their wallets. If one adds up the Alliance's tax cuts with those we made in opposition and those we are making now, they are large sums. It is strengthened, of course, for both women and men, but because the cuts have been targeted at low- and middle-income earners, they have, from a percentage perspective, most strengthened women, which I also mentioned in the answer.
All this is important for equality. There are other issues that I also think are enormously important when it comes to the economy and where we as politicians have a responsibility.
How do we ensure that more women own more? That we in 2024 are in a situation where women own half as much as men in Sweden, I think more people should engage in, both men and women. How do we get more women to invest, to dare to take risks and to start companies? The ideas and the power are there. We can contribute with support for women's entrepreneurship and many other things, but a debate and support from other parts of society are also needed.
I would like to thank you for this question. It is important. We can do many different things to strengthen women's situation. Just as the interpellator says, it has been a terribly tough time with the price increases. Now they have nevertheless eased, but the consequences of inflation still remain.
This is an issue to continue working on in different ways. It is about both ensuring that women who want to work more are able to do so, such as those who have a part-time job and cannot live on their salary, and, as we have touched upon previously, about foreign-born women who do not have their own salary to live on at all.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! The importance of equality can never be overestimated. It is truly important. We see tendencies now in Sweden that equality is on its way back. Therefore, it is important for us politicians to hold fast to it, to talk about equality and to examine it.
When I meet colleagues from different parts of the world, I usually say that one of the most important issues, even though it may sound boring and dry, is that we must always examine all our proposals and everything we do through a gender equality lens. We can do this by using the law to conduct an analysis of how each proposal actually affects politics, society, and the women who live in Sweden. That is why I, perhaps with a fool's persistence, continue to raise this issue.
I think there are flaws in the analysis. The Ministry of Finance is usually very good at this and is still better than some other ministries. However, I do not think that is a consolation, as this must be done all the time. There have also been some reforms from the government that have lacked the gender equality analysis that should be there.
I want to give some examples of why I think the analysis is lacking. It is, for example, as I said, about merged years. Then one cannot discern what applies to the individual year and what the budget investments that have been made, for example for 2024, have really yielded.
Transfers are aggregated with direct taxes, so it is difficult to see how this hits. In some calculations, it has also been assumed, for example, that the petrol and diesel tax would affect everyone equally. We do know, however, that women use public transport more and that men drive more by car. This is important to take into account.
The tax cut that the so-called threshold represents for high-income earners is not included. We know that two-thirds of those who benefit from this are men. Other budget items are included nonetheless - although few. One is, for example, the increase in the housing allowance, which benefits women more than men. But one offsets the other.
A previous matter was the electricity support. It is furthermore not possible to follow up because it is subject to secrecy, but we can still assume that it benefits men more than women.
We also calculated in percentages. The government told today about new job tax credits, but when we speak in percentages, it is important to remember that women are not benefited as much by this in terms of kronor because they do not have as high salaries. This is important.
I also want to bring up something that I emphasized earlier, namely the money for welfare. The Finance Minister has stated that she believes a lot has been invested. Reality says something else. We have a healthcare crisis, and we have a new report showing that the school is now hit by the worst cuts in 30 years.
It hurts a little in the heart when the same women whom we all applauded during the pandemic are now affected by cuts in the public sector more than men. They were promised better working conditions, and instead, they are affected by the cuts that now follow.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Madam Speaker! The question is whether there is something wrong with the tax system or the pension system, or whether it is a matter of us having a rather unequal labor market.
The tax system should be neutral, and the pension system should also be. What do I mean by this? Yes, I believe that it should always pay to work. We also focus specifically on tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners, where women are represented to a greater extent in the higher brackets.
The systems themselves are about supporting low- and middle-income earners but also those who go to work every day. Why have we proposed a tax cut now? Well, so that all those women who go to work every day, who toil and who try to make ends meet, can keep more in their wallets.
Lowering taxes for ordinary people does not seem to be something the Social Democrats are passionate about. On the contrary, here in Stockholm, taxes have been raised both in the city and in the region now, in the midst of the worst crisis for ordinary people who go to work and struggle in different ways all around Stockholm. I think that is very unfortunate.
My husband is a nurse, and there is absolutely a shortage of men in the healthcare sector, but despite the fact that we are so equal, we have an unequal labor market. I would like to see a discussion even about this. I believe there is much more to be done there. I believe that Eva Lindh and I could come up with a fairly good proposal that we could certainly discuss at another time.
Let me devote a few seconds and a minute to the welfare system. The welfare system has truly had it enormously tough. And what is it that has made it tough for the regions, those responsible for healthcare, over the last two years? Yes, it is inflation.
Pension costs have been raised from 30 to 60 billion in just two years. That has clearly pushed out a number of other things. Therefore, the government, together with the Sweden Democrats, allocated 40 percent of the reform space in this year's budget to exactly welfare. Additionally, we added another 6 billion, as I said earlier.
It is also important to remember that many are currently working on finding new ways of working. Schools are having a tough time, but in the name of honesty, one must also remember that the cohorts of children are now significantly smaller.
Regions and municipalities are primarily responsible for their operations and have a responsibility to finance them. The state shall participate by supporting and providing funds. There is a broad consensus on this here in the Riksdag, and I think that is obvious. That is what we truly did before and during this year, for example.
Different crises affect men and women in different ways. The financial crisis hit men hardest. As Eva Lindh says, many women in the welfare sector are now having a tough time in different ways. It is precisely for that reason we have stepped up. It is precisely for that reason we are lowering the tax. The person who is an assistant nurse shall have more money in their wallet when one has lost so much of their real income and the real wage increases have been reduced.
Finally, we have the older women, the guaranteed pensioners, who are many all around Sweden and who are having a very tough time. There we have our systems with indexing, and due to the high inflation, the conditions have improved. It is 850 kronor every month during last year and an additional 850 every month this year in increase.
That is how our systems work. When prices rise to such levels, the compensations also increase. It is fundamentally good that we have these systems, but I also want a woman who goes to work and toils, whether she is an engineer, a bus driver, a nursing assistant, or works with administration at the Riksdag or something else, to receive increased purchasing power and reinforcement.
It is possible to do this when prioritizing among the state's expenditures. Then one can lower the tax for those who work. One can prioritize welfare, defense, police and the justice system by saying no to some other things.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! Is the problem the taxes or working life? Of course, it is the case that inequality in working life is a major problem and that which contributes most to the 30 percent difference between women's and men's pensions. The taxes drive this inequality. That one does not handle the taxes correctly and decides how to deal with them causes the injustices to increase.
Then I want to correct the Minister for Finance. Quite honestly, the fact is that we also proposed a tax cut that was aimed at ordinary people.
The Minister for Finance mentioned increased taxes in the municipalities, which is due to the fact that the municipalities often have it tough. The taxes are raised to manage the welfare that one has. We need to provide more resources to the welfare. This is extremely important for the sake of the welfare. That the welfare actually works is, of course, important for all of us.
It is also the case that cuts in public spending affect women disproportionately. This has long-term negative consequences for growth but, above all, for equality. When resources for welfare are insufficient, it affects everyone, but it hits women particularly hard.
I will continue to fight for this. I want to add that a proper analysis must be conducted so that we can see what this actually means. Think about what the conditions will be! A percentage increase or decrease in the tax makes a difference for women who earn very little. We must take into account the economic situation that many women have.
It is important with economic equality for both women and men. It is important to include this.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you once again, Eva Lindh, for the interpellation!
Equality is about several things. It is about economy, it is about power, and it is about freedom and more things than that. I, as Finance Minister, and we as a government work on many fronts, for example by pushing back honor oppression, which is the biggest hostage and obstacle for many young girls when it comes to growing up, being free individuals and making their own choices.
When it comes to the issue of violence against women, we are working to ensure that more women do not have to end their lives at home due to violence from men in their proximity. There is a range of measures and initiatives that we are undertaking. We are lowering taxes for women and men. I want more women to have more to live on and be able to save a bit more in order to, for example, be able to leave a destructive relationship.
All these are issues that I think are very important, and I am glad that Eva Lindh raises them.
Finally, politics also plays a role regarding leadership. We have the state-owned companies—a portfolio with a value of over 800 billion. There, the state, under both the previous and the current government, has set an example in ensuring that we have equality. There I stick my neck out and say that it is the world's most equal corporate portfolio in terms of board level and CEO level. I am very proud of that. It shows that it is possible to have women and men in our companies. I believe it is good to use all the competence that exists in Sweden. More listed companies should follow suit, because there is much more to be done.
We will continue to fight together, I believe. We have partially different starting points, but they are often the same – that women and girls should be free, safe, and have economic freedom.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.