Response to interpellation 2025/26:183 on the reduction of the activity support
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the reduction of the activity support and the new regulatory framework for the unemployment insurance. L argues that the system is based on income to simplify, strengthen the work principle, and counter incorrect payments 1 2. L emphasizes the importance of further education for people over 60 3 and argues that long-term unemployment entails risks for mental health and substance abuse 4. S argues that the reduction forces older long-term unemployed people to sell assets and end up on social assistance 5 6. S argues that the reduction is equivalent to an insurance company worsening the terms when a villa burns down 7. V argues that income-based rules are unfair to low-income earners 8 and criticizes the policy for making people poorer 8 9.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Arbetsmarknadsministern Johan Britz (L)
Madam Speaker! Ardalan Shekarabi has asked me about my and the government's analysis of the changes to the rules regarding the "akassan" and its impact on persons who receive activity support, and whether I intend to take any measures based on my analysis.
I would like to start by thanking Ardalan Shekarabi for raising this important issue.
Everyone who can work shall work. That is the entire basis for our prosperity and for people's opportunity for freedom and to shape their lives. However, everyone can lose their job. For those who do, there must be financial support during the transition between jobs.
The proposal for the new law on unemployment insurance is largely based on the proposals and assessments submitted in the report A new regulatory framework for the unemployment insurance (SOU 2020:37).
Following a proposal from the government, the Riksdag approved the bill An unemployment insurance based on income (prop. 2023/24:128) in June 2024. The bill states the consequences that the proposals in the bill are assessed to entail. A consequence assessment has also been established in connection with the government's decision on current regulations.
The new regulatory framework for the unemployment insurance and the changes to the activity support entered into force on 1 October. The transition to the new rules occurs in different ways for different benefit seekers. For some, it will be a direct transition. For others, it will take longer.
The new unemployment insurance is based on income and creates conditions for more people to be covered by an insurance in case of unemployment. It also contributes more clearly to transition between jobs by having the compensation scale down uniformly over the period of unemployment.
Even within the activity support, the transition principle has been strengthened by introducing a new ceiling for the income qualifying for compensation and a gradual tapering of the compensation level. In addition, the government has decided on an increase of the basic level in the activity support, a level that has remained unchanged for a long time.
The Government is following the development of the expenditures for the unemployment insurance and the activity support.
Ardalan Shekarabi (S)
Madam Speaker, honorable ministers! Right now, we are reading in newspapers across Sweden about people, often older unemployed individuals, who have their compensation – their activity support – reduced to a level that means they are forced to sell their limited assets, perhaps their car, and begin considering selling their home because they know that they will soon be dependent on subsistence support, what was previously called social welfare.
It is not 1, 2, 10 or 100 – it is 86,000 people, according to Försäkringskassan, who are receiving reduced activity support. Many of these people are older unemployed people.
I am 47. The Honorable Minister is 50. We have no idea where we will stand in life when we are 61, Madam Speaker. It could very well be that we who are now at the top of the labor market stand there vulnerable, 61 years old, looking for jobs but being denied job after job. That is how reality looks in today's Sweden.
These are people who have done right by themselves. Most have worked, struggled, and paid their social security contributions. They have done their part. But when the state is to fulfill its part, when they are to receive the economic security that is required, the state lowers the compensation for specifically older long-term unemployed.
I am convinced that the Minister receives the same type of letters that I receive from hundreds of long-term unemployed people who are desperate. The Minister knows better than I do, because the Minister leads the Ministry of Employment, that the situation has not improved since the decision on the reduction was made in 2024. It is significantly harder for older unemployed people to get jobs today than it was two years ago. It is 100,000 more who have become unemployed during this parliamentary term.
I wanted to give the Minister a chance to come to the Riksdag and announce that the government now sees these 86,000 Swedes – they exist; they are flesh and blood – and that the government is now prepared to do something for this group. I was prepared to come to the Riksdag today to extend a hand to the Minister and hear if we together in the Riksdag can do something to save these 86,000 people so that we do not force 86,000 Swedes into dependency on maintenance support and social benefits in the coming weeks and months. I did not, however, receive such an answer, and that is regrettable.
In the end, Madam Speaker, we are all vulnerable. It could be me or the Minister who, in ten years' time, is affected by such a situation. It should be a reminder to us all of our mutuality. The people who have done right and stood up for Sweden deserve respect, and with respect comes economic security the day one becomes unemployed.
I want to give the Minister the chance again. Has the government produced new analyses based on the information in the media? Is the Minister ready to take some measures so that these 86,000 elderly unemployed people do not end up dependent on social assistance from the municipalities' social services?
Ciczie Weidby (V)
Madam Speaker! I want first to comment on the change in the fund rules that Johan Britz thinks is so good, that is, that it is income that determines how one enters the system. It is obviously deeply unfair, especially towards my comrades within the Trade and Hotel and Restaurant Union who have quite low incomes. Therefore, worked time would obviously have been the most reasonable way to enter the fund.
Yesterday I asked the Prime Minister why he defends and thinks it is good with a policy that makes people poor. In the evening I then received an email from a Hans – thank you so very much for your email, Hans!
He says: I am one of those 86,000 that you tried to represent today. Thank you for trying to make the Prime Minister understand what it is like to be unemployed! But it seemed as if you were speaking to deaf ears.
Mejlet continues by saying that he has worked and paid tax and social security contributions for over 40 years, but that he now, as if by magic, loses 2,500 kronor a month – starting from a compensation that is not all that large either, he says.
He continues: Now I get 13,500 for 23 days. At Christmas I get approximately 11,000 for 20 days.
It is like this for many. He has been without a job for three years. Then you think: My dear world, how could you have been without a job for so long? Well, it is very difficult to get a job when you are 60 years old and have applied for so many jobs all the time. Sometimes you get one: Thanks, nice that you applied here, but no thanks, and so on. It is tragic.
He concludes: It might be just as well if Kristersson sends along a suicide pill, because this will kill people anyway the way they are proceeding. I hope that Kristersson is the one who has to register with the Public Employment Service after the election. And that is something everyone agrees on.
The question is what the Minister for Employment wants to say to these people, who are old and have been part of and paid into the system for a very long time but who are treated as nothing.
I myself am only 51. But everything is moving at such a rapid pace, and soon I too will be 55-plus and will have a hell of a hard time getting a job.
This policy of hunting people in this way, of simply making them poor, of creating a system that only hunts, demonstrates a view of humanity, an ideology, and a view of people's ability or will to get into the labor market that is very sad.
My question is: What would you like to say to Hans and all others who do their best to get a job but do not get it and are punished for it?
Arbetsmarknadsministern Johan Britz (L)
Madam Speaker! We can start a bit from the back. The previous unemployment insurance was based on hours worked. It was complicated and involved a heavy administrative burden for employers, funds, and the unemployed. Information on hours worked is also uncertain and difficult to verify in retrospect. The risk of errors and inaccuracies was significant.
The previous qualification condition, the so-called work condition, contributed to the unemployment insurance functioning as an all-or-nothing insurance. There was a need for a qualification condition with better precision, but also for individuals to be able to foresee their insurance coverage in a simpler way.
The introduction of information on income in employer declarations at the individual level provided new opportunities to modernize, simplify and streamline the unemployment insurance, strengthen the work line and counteract incorrect payments.
The best thing we can do for the unemployed is to help them break the unemployment. The single most important measure we can take to help people break the unemployment is to offer education that leads to jobs, not least vocational training.
I have an appeal to everyone who asks the question: What should I do when I am unemployed? I have been unemployed for a while. In that case, my answer is: It is super tough to be unemployed – we can come back to that. It is also dangerous to be unemployed. We must break the unemployment, and the best way to break the unemployment is through education that leads to jobs.
There are jobs in Sweden, but there is not competence for all those jobs. I am thinking primarily about that more people need to dare to take that vocational training which might be something different from what one has worked with previously. It can be at yrkesvux. It can be within the labor market training. It can be at folkhögskola. It can be at yrkeshögskola. But take a training! Talk to Arbetsförmedlingen! Which professions are in demand? Bus drivers are in demand in all Swedish labor market regions. Ask the question to Arbetsförmedlingen: Which professions are in demand where I live?
Make sure to take a training course that leads to a job! That is my absolute most important advice to all people who feel that they have a very difficult time entering the labor market.
Ardalan Shekarabi (S)
Madam Speaker! Has the Minister misunderstood which interpellation this debate concerns? We are talking about elderly unemployed people who are close to retirement age, who perhaps have one or two years left until retirement and who have their activity support reduced to the extent that they must sell their car and home. Is the Minister's recommendation to 63-, 64-, and 65-year-olds who this month have their activity support drastically cut that they should attend vocational training to change career paths? I do not know how I should respond to the entry.
Sweden currently has the third highest unemployment in the EU. 100,000 more have become unemployed during the last three years, and unemployment has continued to increase in recent months. How can the government then not take any measures to help the group of older long-term unemployed, but instead focus on lowering their benefit level to a level that is not livable, so that they are forced into social welfare dependency a couple of years before retirement? Is it truly dignified in the country Sweden?
Madam Speaker! It is okay if the Sweden Democrats betrayed their promise and implemented the reduction of the cash payment and the activity support, which they promised before the election they would not do. But the Liberals then – that party which was once called Folkpartiet and worked with my party to build up the security systems after the Second World War, so that we would show respect for wage earners in Sweden? We were to have a society characterized by dignity. How can the Liberals accept that the policy being pushed forward these days pushes 86,000 people into social assistance one or a few years before they go into retirement? Can this be dignified in our society?
I intended to use my speaking time, Madam Speaker, to read out some examples because it seems that the Minister does not quite accept the reality that is currently being depicted in the Swedish media.
Here are some testimonies that have been highlighted in the media.
Sven, 62 years old: Previously I had the maximum amount of 1,005 kronor in daily allowance. Now it is under 700 kronor. I must now live on 11,600 kronor after tax. The rent for my two-room apartment is 9,000 kronor.
Paul Schmidt, 54 years old: He had his compensation reduced by almost 3,000 kronor without warning. That is also an aspect; they have not received a warning about the reduction.
Single mother in southern Sweden: I, like many others, have lost the ability to pay for housing and food. I look for a job every day, send hundreds of applications and visit employers – but nothing happens. Without support from the state, my daughter and I have ended up in an unsustainable situation.
Another person: I am a 62-year-old woman, university-educated – listen here, Minister – and YH-educated. I have a disability that results in reduced work capacity. That being said, I struggle in my job search with age discrimination, ill health, low self-esteem, competition in the labor market, no agency, dependence on authorities, constant anxiety, and stigmatization against the long-term unemployed. How is one supposed to manage on 365 kronor per day, or scrape by on 6,000 kronor a month?
This is the reality in one of the world's richest countries. It is not worthy. Act! Change this!
Ciczie Weidby (V)
Madam Speaker! Just as Shekarabi said earlier, one is somewhat astonished that the tip for people over 60 is to obtain a vocational education. It is far from reality, not to meet or know the long-term unemployed. One sees the word long-term unemployed and imagines a lump of lazy people who do not want to pull their weight.
This is somewhat what characterizes this government's labor market policy, or lack of labor market policy. People must exert themselves more; they are lazy. Hungry wolves hunt best and so on. It is deeply cynical, and it is not dignified. Furthermore, it is completely insane from a socio-economic perspective. You are just moving the costs somewhere else; if these people cannot pay their rent, then they will have to be on the street. It is not someone else's problem, but everything is your own problem. One does not see how the systems punish and make people poorer.
Sweden is on its way to becoming even more of the world's most unequal country, with a huge difference between those who have and those who really do not have. The number of truly poor people is increasing all the time in our society. It is appalling.
I wish that the Minister for Employment would now say: Hm, this went a bit wrong. We will do it again, and we will do it right.
Arbetsmarknadsministern Johan Britz (L)
Madam Speaker! When did it become the Social Democrats' policy that people over 60 years of age should live on benefits for the rest of their working lives? The contempt for education and retraining that the member expresses surprises me. I thought we were in complete agreement that further education, complementary knowledge, seeking an education that leads to a job, where there is an employer at the other end who demands your knowledge, is the way forward – not that people should live on benefits for a long time, which seems to be the Social Democrats' policy today.
Madam Speaker! I am very concerned about what I hear.
A substantive question has previously been posed regarding a potential influx to social assistance. I can only state that from the consequence assessment established at the time of the decision on the regulations adopted in connection with the Act on a new unemployment insurance based on income, it appears that the municipalities' costs for social assistance for the entire reform collectively are estimated to be unchanged.
Ardalan Shekarabi (S)
Madam Speaker! It sounds to the Minister as if some kind of disinformation campaign is underway in Swedish media, given that it is reported every day in national media and in local media that people are being pushed from activity support into subsistence support.
Madam Speaker! Now I am going to say the following, and I believe members in the chamber have surely done this five times in debates with the Minister: The unemployment insurance, the fund, is an insurance, partially financed by citizens – voluntarily and by them themselves. It is not a subsidy. It is an insurance, just as the Minister hopefully has a home insurance. The difference is that we agree that the fund is partially financed collectively because we want a solidary society, so that the one who is affected by unemployment shall not bear the risk entirely alone. We have a mutuality in the insurance.
That the government, time and again, surely for the third time in the chamber, calls the unemployment insurance a benefit is a mockery of all those people who do the right thing and pay their insurance fee, that is, subscribe to the insurance in the belief that the state will keep its promise the day they are hit by unemployment and need to use the insurance.
What the Minister for Employment, the government, and the Sweden Democrats are currently doing towards older long-term unemployed people through the reduction of the activity support is as if a private insurance company were to lower and severely worsen the terms of the home insurance when the house starts to burn. That is exactly what is happening right now.
Madam Speaker! I use my last seconds of speaking time to remind the Minister that the allowance is not a grant. It is an insurance.
Arbetsmarknadsministern Johan Britz (L)
Madam Speaker! Let me then remind the interpellor that what he has interpellated about is the activity support and that his latest contribution concerned the activity support, not the cash payment.
I can also state that the care is financed to approximately 75–80 percent by tax revenues, not by fees.
I truly regret that the Social Democrats do not take long-term unemployment and prolonged passivity seriously. Being unemployed for a long time, for more than twelve months, which Arbetsförmedlingen defines as long-term unemployment, involves a gradual breakdown of a human being. The risk of alcohol abuse, the risk of mental ill-health, and the risk of suicide increase with the time one is unemployed.
It also applies to those who are over 60 years old. Even those who are over 60 years old must come into work. Even those who are over 60 years old may need to undergo supplementary training to get closer to the labor market and live up to the expectations and requirements that employers set.
The answer cannot be that those over 60 years of age should live on benefits until they go into retirement. It is a poverty trap, but it is also a disease trap.
Thank you very much for this discussion!
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.