Response to interpellation 2024/25:111 on child poverty and reduced taxes for high-income earners
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 improves the economic standard of living for families with children by strengthening the work principle, implementing broad tax cuts, and introducing the leisure card 1. M emphasizes that it is important that more parents work to protect the children 1 2 and that the government is now implementing reforms to protect vulnerable children 3. M wants to ensure that it always pays more to work than to receive benefits 4. S argues that the government prioritizes incorrectly by giving tax cuts to high-income earners while families with children find it harder 5. S suggests that the child allowance be increased, the housing allowance be permanently strengthened 6 and that a tax cut hits broadly and correctly 7.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Madam Speaker! Ida Ekeroth Clausson has asked the Minister for Finance if she has taken the initiative for an analysis of the consequences for the most vulnerable families with children of high-income earners receiving a tax cut of 3,000-4,000 kronor per month, and how she intends, within her area of responsibility, to work to ensure that all children are given the opportunity to grow up under equal conditions to reach their full potential.
The work within the government is distributed in such a way that it is I who shall answer the interpellation.
All children have, according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the right to the standard of living necessary for the child's development.
Child poverty is a complex issue, and the solutions to reduce economic vulnerability are not found solely within one policy area. The government's policy therefore proceeds from the premise that the combined efforts within several different policy areas shall contribute to an improvement of children's families' opportunities for a good economic standard of living and good upbringing conditions for children.
We know that households with children generally have a lower economic standard than households without children. The government therefore targets specific measures precisely at these households. For example, in order to strengthen the economic situation for those who have it the hardest, the government has on several occasions extended the temporary supplementary grant to families with children within the housing allowance.
In order to help economically vulnerable households and reduce child poverty in the long term, it is important to get more people into work. The Government is implementing a number of different measures that together shall strengthen the work principle and make it more profitable to move from benefits to work.
That more parents go to work is the best way to protect children from a low economic standard. All too long periods of financial assistance make it difficult to enter the labor market, which in turn creates increased ill health and exclusion.
The government has implemented several reforms to strengthen the incentives to work, for example, reinforcements of the job tax credit. Approximately 6 million people are estimated to be affected by the latest proposal on reinforced job tax credit and the corresponding adjustment for pensioners. The government's budget therefore entails broad tax cuts for low-, middle-, and high-income earners.
The Government is also preparing the issue of contribution ceilings and an activity requirement for adults who receive social assistance. This, together with an enhanced job tax credit, can increase the incentives for the individual to reach self-sufficiency.
Another initiative I want to mention is the leisure card, which is the government's major reform to promote children's and young people's active participation in sports, culture, outdoor life, and association life in community with others. Children's and young people's opportunities to participate in leisure activities should not be determined by the size of their parents' wallets.
Overall, the measures I have now set out are effective in helping families with children, and particularly the very weakest households, and they contribute to creating good conditions for upbringing.
Ida Ekeroth Clausson (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you to Camilla Waltersson Grönvall for the answer!
It sounds good, of course, when the Minister says that the government's policy shall contribute to an improvement of families with children's opportunities for a good economic standard of living and good upbringing conditions for children. But unfortunately, the reality is different.
The government chooses to lower the tax by 3,000-4,000 kronor per month for those with the highest incomes, while more families with children are evicted, at a time when there are record numbers of families at the Enforcement Authority and when ordinary families with children have difficulty making ends meet.
It is indeed true, just as the Minister says, that the government is directing tax cuts even towards those who have lower incomes. The difference is that for a person who, like the Minister, earns around 150,000 kronor a month, a tax cut of 3,000 kronor a month awaits. For a person with Sweden's most common job, a nursing assistant, a tax cut of 150 kronor a month awaits instead.
It is for me a completely unreasonable prioritization, and it is a prioritization that definitely does not facilitate things for the most vulnerable families with children, regardless of what the Minister and the government claim. Sweden will not be strengthened by those who already have the most getting even more at the expense of ordinary people.
Therefore, the Social Democrats reject the government's proposal to abolish the tapering of the job tax credit. The government has chosen to leave ordinary people in the lurch while it burns billions on tax cuts for the very richest.
Madam Speaker! In the response to the interpellation, the Minister mentions a contribution ceiling as a way to get more people to achieve self-sufficiency. To further complicate things for parents is a very moderate way to protect children from a low economic standard.
The reality is that unemployment has increased under this government. Since the SD government took office, unemployment has risen to the highest level in ten years, apart from the pandemic years.
Housing construction has crashed, large companies plan to lay off thousands of employees, the number of bankruptcies is increasing sharply in Sweden and the vacancies within health and social care are the highest in over a decade.
Such a challenging situation needs to be met with an active labor market policy and concrete measures to save jobs instead of tax cuts for the very richest, cuts of billions of kronor on labor market policy, and insinuations that the unemployed could have gotten a job if they had only exerted themselves a little more.
Madam Speaker! It has now been over two years since the government took office. Exactly what does the Minister mean by that things have become better for families with children with the smallest economic margins since then?
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Madam Speaker! Many thanks to the member for questions that deeply concern those whom I have understood that we are both very committed to working to strengthen the opportunities for, namely our children, who are the most vulnerable!
When serious things happen in society – it can be as serious things as war, but it can also be high inflation and that growth is dampened – it is ultimately our children who are affected most severely.
I am sure that the member is very aware that the government inherited a very high inflation that eroded growth and the economy in this country. The new government, which has now been in office for two years, has carried out a very successful job of combating inflation.
As I am sure the member also knows, when it comes to the economy, unemployment will often continue to increase for a while before the inflation fight shows itself in the form of reduced unemployment. That is the situation we find ourselves in.
Now the government is working in a number of different ways to promote growth and, in that way, turn around the figures that were record-high even during the previous government. They were so high that Sweden was among the countries that had the highest figures in all of Europe. It is now the government's extremely strong focus to also turn around the inherited situation when it comes to unemployment.
When it comes to children and the figures we see regarding child poverty, Sweden developed under the previous, Social Democratic-led government into the country in the Nordic region with the highest child poverty. That development occurred during eight years of Social Democratic rule.
I say this to remind that it is important to see how history has looked. It is also a matter of understanding that it takes time to turn around such a serious situation. There also lies an incredibly heavy responsibility on the previous Social Democratic government.
With that said, we agree that it can have an extremely negative impact on a child's living conditions to grow up in economic vulnerability. It can affect many areas of life in the long term and in the short term.
In the longer term, it can have an impact regarding ill health, poorer school results, substance abuse and crime, unemployment and need for assistance. That is why it is so extremely urgent to turn the situation around.
The living conditions for children growing up in families with long-term financial assistance can be negatively affected to a greater extent, not only in comparison with the general population but also in comparison with children growing up in families with low incomes.
Therefore, one of the government's most important and overarching priorities is to break the exclusion by finding measures that ensure people get into work and become part of a social community.
It is absolutely crucial that more people enter employment and can manage on their own income. It is in itself of decisive importance that children see their parents go to work every morning. It is one of the most important measures we can take.
Ida Ekeroth Clausson (S)
Madam Speaker! Handels has conducted a survey among its members who are employed in shops. A third of them live below the poverty line. What would they do if they received a few thousand extra per month? The answers are heartbreaking. They would not have to borrow money every month, they would pay for their prescription medicines, and they would eat until they were full.
Take this in! This is how reality looks in the SD-government's Sweden, and it is the reality that the government faces with its massive tax cuts for those who never need to go hungry or be worried about not being able to afford medicine.
For us Social Democrats, it is unacceptable that children should have to pay for the cost crisis. Therefore, we propose that the child allowance be increased by 200 kronor per month next year. It would give a family with two children almost 5,000 kronor more per year so that they can afford nutritious food and other completely necessary expenses.
For many families with children, the housing cost is the largest expense. The reinforcement of the housing allowance was introduced to support those families with children who have it toughest financially. Now the government chooses to completely withdraw the support starting from July 2025. This gives an impression that rents are falling and that it will become cheaper to live. But that is not the case. Once again, the government's rhetoric does not match reality. The dramatic price increase that has occurred in recent years due to the inflation that has hit the entire world remains.
We Social Democrats stand on the side of families with children and therefore propose a permanent reinforcement of the housing allowance at the original level. This would give a family with maximum housing allowance 2,100 kronor more per month from July onwards.
Madam Speaker! The leisure card that the Minister highlights as a major reform to promote young people's participation in sports, culture, and outdoor life is unfortunately nothing other than a failure. We Social Democrats were early on skeptical of the model that the government chose. Among other things, we saw a risk that the money would end up with criminal activities.
It has now been shown that the government has not put in place the system that would be needed to implement the leisure card. The 700 million kronor that were allocated will not be spent. Does the Minister really think that the leisure card should be highlighted as a positive example when 700 million kronor that were supposed to go to children's and young people's leisure activities could not be used?
The Social Democrats are now proposing that the money be used for measures that could benefit children's and young people's sports in their everyday lives. Can the Minister and the government not stand behind that proposal?
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Member, for the continued questions! After many years as a political activist, I have the utmost respect for both my political opponents and those I work with. I see the complexity of politics and the difficulties that sometimes exist when it comes to truly making interventions in depth that also make a difference.
But when one, as a member, represents a party that is so deeply responsible for the fact that families with children are in this tough situation – which I have just demonstrated – I think it would be appropriate with a certain humility. Take this in, said the member. I ask the member to take in that we inherit a situation where the economy hits the vulnerable children absolutely hardest and where the government's inflation-fighting means that we can now invest in various kinds of measures for the vulnerable children.
If I were more drastic, I would even have called it, as the member says, a form of hypocrisy. You Social Democrats have not stood on the side of families with children. You are doing it now, in opposition, but I believe that what should be accounted for and what one should be judged for is what one did when one had the opportunity to govern and lead the country.
I, who work very much with vulnerable children, can state this all the more clearly. That is why the government is now making a number of reforms to help the most vulnerable children. It concerns a new Social Services Act and many of the issues that you did not manage to write down from the Social Democrats' side.
It is about vulnerable children and about ensuring that children who have been subjected to violence do not need to have contact with a guardian they are afraid of. It is about ensuring that women and children who flee to protected housing now receive a completely different protection and other rights than they have had before. It is about ensuring that the travel ban covers more children and constitutes a stronger protection for the vulnerable children.
We are continuing work on a new LVU, which is the real Lex Lilla hjärtat and many other parts in this. It is about breaking down secrecy barriers so that the correct information can be transferred between different authorities in order to protect children. It is about things that most people believe have been in place for a long time, such as ensuring that children cannot escape, organize escapes or obtain drugs and weapons for institutions such as Sis.
All this has occurred during the two years that this government has governed the country. These are matters where the needs have been gigantic for such a long time. It is a cathedral of increased security that we are now working to build for the most vulnerable children. It is everything from reforms that protect these children in vulnerability to ensuring that they do not grow up in families in economic vulnerability. And there we know that the absolute greatest security and best safety for these children and young people is to see their parents leave for work every morning.
Ida Ekeroth Clausson (S)
Madam Speaker! My first question in the interpellation was whether any analysis has been made of the consequences for the most vulnerable families with children when high-income earners receive a tax cut of 3,000-4,000 kronor per month. I have still received no answer to that question, and it is increasingly apparent that no such analysis has been made.
In other European countries, we see how governments choose to proceed with increased pensions, enhanced child allowances, and investments to jump-start jobs.
In the Social Democrats' budget motion, we propose, in addition to an increased child allowance, for example, a strengthened housing allowance for pensioners and a tax cut that hits broadly and correctly. But for the government, it is therefore the high-income earners who are to be compensated the most after the inflation shock, despite the fact that they are least affected by it.
Over the last two years, I have submitted a number of interpellations to the Minister for Finance and other cabinet ministers regarding how the government is working to facilitate things for families who have the smallest economic margins. The answers have always sounded well-intentioned, just like Camilla Waltersson Grönvall's answer today.
I do not doubt the commitment, but the problem is that the commitment does not shine through in the government's policy. I wish the government were as proactive when it comes to supporting these families as it is when it comes to lowering taxes for the very richest.
Statsrådet Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you very much, Ida Ekeroth Clausson, for an important debate when it comes to the conditions for children and young people in Sweden!
I begin by stating that the situation for the most vulnerable children is extra serious when the country also faces economic difficulties. We have now, from the government's side, won the battle against inflation. This makes it possible to invest in a completely different way and to continue expanding the reforms that build the country strong but which also, in a completely different way, build the country's youth strong.
I note that one of the most important measures is to ensure that people do not need to be dependent on benefits and on the state, but can stand on their own feet and have their own independent livelihood. It absolutely best benefits the children who are in a vulnerable situation to see their parents go to work every day.
But we are also building on a number of other reforms. We want to ensure that it will always pay more to go to a job than to receive a benefit. I believe that the Swedish people are very much in agreement with the government when it comes to the money going to what is needed most, and that is not providing people with benefits when they should instead have a job.
I would like to conclude by underlining all the reforms that are now falling into place, one by one, to strengthen the situation for Sweden's most vulnerable children. We are building step by step, stone by stone, a cathedral of protection for our absolutely most vulnerable children in Sweden.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.