Response to interpellation 2025/26:213 on the right to income for persons with disabilities

Äldre- och socialförsäkringsministern Anna Tenje (M)

Mr. Speaker! Nadja Awad has asked Minister for Social Services Camilla Waltersson Grönvall what measures she and the government intend to take to strengthen the economy among persons with disabilities. Nadja Awad has also asked the Minister for Social Services whether she and the government intend to make the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into law.

The work within the government is so distributed, Mr. Speaker, that it is I who shall answer the questions.

People should feel secure that there is a sickness insurance that provides financial compensation if they cannot work due to illness or disability. Sickness compensation and activity compensation are adjusted annually with the price base amount, which follows the price level according to the consumer price index. It is an appropriate arrangement that sickness compensation and activity compensation, in accordance with current law, are indexed with the price base amount to compensate for increased costs. The housing supplement, which is assessed against among other things income, is an important supplementary benefit to sickness and activity compensation. Single persons can receive at most 6,550 kronor per month. The extra cost allowance shall compensate for extra costs linked to disability.

In the budget bill for 2026 (prop. 2025/26:1), the government focuses on strengthening household finances, among other things through halved food VAT, reduced tax on labor and reduced tax on electricity, as well as previously reduced tax on fuels, but also through special investments for persons who receive sickness or activity compensation in the form of guarantee compensation. Against the background that sickness or activity compensation has been taxed higher than the corresponding wage income, this difference in taxation is now abolished through a reinforcement of the tax reduction for persons who receive sickness or activity compensation. The tax reduction is approximately 1,700 kronor per year in 2026 for those who have full sickness compensation in the form of guarantee compensation and have reached the age of 30.

The government is also taking several measures to improve labor market participation, which also strengthens the economic situation for persons with disabilities.

The work line is, as is well known, central to the government's policy. Young people receiving activity compensation who have the prerequisites to approach work and who have an entire working life ahead of them shall be given greater support and interventions in order to enable self-sufficiency. The government has therefore tasked Försäkringskassan with taking measures to develop the work of continuously investigating the prerequisites for, and initiating, work-preparatory or work-life-oriented interventions for persons with activity compensation.

The assignment also includes that the authority shall develop its cooperation with the municipalities to follow up that young people who receive activity compensation and who are in the municipalities' daily operations are given opportunities to approach wage labor when conditions exist. The assignment also covers those persons who can no longer receive activity compensation because they have turned 30 and have therefore been granted sickness benefit in special cases. Försäkringskassan's appropriation has been strengthened in connection with this work, and from 2026 onwards, 28 million kronor will be allocated annually.

I have high expectations that Försäkringskassan raises the level of ambition to support young people with activity compensation for work or studies.

The Government has not made any decisions regarding the incorporation of the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities into Swedish law. Sweden has, however, received recommendations from the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities concerning incorporation. These recommendations are currently being prepared in the Government Offices. The Agency for Participation has also received a specific assignment linked to the recommendations, which will constitute an important part of the continued preparation.

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Nadja Awad (V)

Mr. Speaker! On January 1, the salaries of Members of Parliament were increased by 2,900 kronor per month; now one earns 81,400 kronor. On the same day, the sickness and activity allowance was also increased, but only by 83 kronor. Now, persons with disabilities are forced to live on 12,235 kronor per month, before tax, with today's prices and costs.

The Minister says that people with disabilities should feel secure with Sweden's social insurance system. This group is thus condemned to a life of poverty and lack of freedom simply because they have a disability. How is this living in security? How is it going to be possible to pay the rent, the food, the electricity bill, and the winter jacket? How is one supposed to afford assistive devices, travel services, and other expenses and costs when one receives an increase of only 83 kronor from an already low level?

The same government that is most responsible for ensuring that every person here in the country can afford to live chooses to raise politicians' salaries and to lower their own and the billionaires' taxes. Why does this government and the Sweden Democrats prioritize sidelining the right for persons with disabilities to afford to live, not just survive?

The Minister also says that it should pay to work. It does not pay to work in daily activities, because people with disabilities do not even receive a salary for the work they do. Many work for free at a workplace. The Government and the Sweden Democrats watch while people work for free when they are entitled to habilitation compensation.

For those who do receive compensation for their work, the compensation can be 20 kronor for a full working day, as it is in Malmö, or 15 kronor per hour, as it is in Huddinge. In today's Sweden, persons with disabilities are not paid for the work they do, or they receive a very low compensation. The compensation also differs depending on where in Sweden one lives.

This concerns over 40,000 people today who work in daily activities. They wash for elderly care homes, work in cafes, manufacture products that are sold and shovel snow, several hours every day, one to five days a week, but do not have the right to a decent wage, holiday pay or unemployment insurance. Why do the government and the Sverigedemokrater allow people with disabilities to be forced to work for free? They also do not get the chance to transition to the ordinary labor market or educate themselves, which is also the intention of daily activities according to LSS.

But let us also not, Mr. Speaker, forget the over 500,000 unemployed in Sweden. We have the highest unemployment in 20 years. Many of the unemployed have a disability, such as for example Maria Kullmar from Halmstad. She got her first employment at the age of 39. She has been long-term unemployed and has not received the support she needed from a broken-down, privatized, cut, and inaccessible employment service. Finally, she has received employment as an operations manager at a café, thanks to the state wage subsidy. But now workplaces like Maria's risk going bankrupt and disappearing because the government does not increase the wage subsidy, which has not been increased for five years. Maria thus risks falling into long-term unemployment again, and small businesses go bankrupt. That sounds like a very bad work line, Mr. Speaker.

My question is: Does the Minister wish to mention anything regarding the low increase in sickness and activity compensation and the unequal habilitation compensation, and does the government intend to increase and index the wage subsidy so that companies can afford to employ persons with disabilities?

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Äldre- och socialförsäkringsministern Anna Tenje (M)

Mr. Speaker! I begin by stating that the government is now lowering the tax and abolishing the difference between income and sickness and activity compensation. We are also halving the food VAT. We are lowering the tax on work in general, and we are also lowering the tax on electricity. We have previously significantly reduced the prices on fuels. These are large costs that have dug large holes in households' pockets, regardless of what situation one is in.

But one can observe that it was still inflation that dug the biggest holes in households' pockets, and that battle we have now won. We had an inflation of over 10 percent, and we have now fought it back to normal levels. After that, we have now launched a budget for 2026, previously also for 2025, which is very expansive – precisely to get the wheels turning in Sweden, so that expansion may prevail and so that growth can be nurtured. In this way, small business owners also get significantly better conditions to hire and also have more people they can hire.

But I am the first to sign that we in Sweden have been very poor at creating opportunities for people with disabilities to enter employment – to ensure the work capacity they actually have – and to create space for interns and apprentices and find opportunities for people to not only be in employment but also have their work capacity accommodated so that they can work and get a job that provides a real income. This we have seen across the entire country for a long time.

Municipalities and regions are quite poor at this, while small and medium-sized enterprises often pave the way and create greater conditions for wage labor than the public sector does. Here, I desire a great improvement from the municipalities' side precisely because there is great potential and much work capacity to be utilized in Sweden.

This would be good not only for the individual themselves but also for society as a whole. To get a job and colleagues, to feel needed and to enter into a professional community are incredibly important social values. But it would also de facto strengthen the individual's economy in a completely different way than we have seen previously.

That is exactly why we have given the assignments that I described in my initial response to both Arbetsförmedlingen and Försäkringskassan – to safeguard the ability to work but also to ensure that people get into work. For this, we have also added money over a longer period so that this is not just something short-term but something we will work on continuously moving forward so that it sustains.

All these parts aim to give persons with disabilities significantly better opportunities for both jobs and education and thus to a stronger economy for the individual themselves. But it is also about us utilizing a significantly larger part of our citizens' work capacity and in that way strengthening small companies but also large workplaces.

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Nadja Awad (V)

Mr. Speaker! The Minister began by describing the government's so-called inflation fight. In that discussion, I want to add: How does it affect inflation that the tax has been lowered for the billionaires and millionaires, or that fees and politicians' salaries have been raised, for both the Minister himself and the Members of Parliament? At the same time, nothing has been done for the households, who are actually those who have the greatest purchasing power here in the country. They are the ones who will consume, and that is what fights inflation. That investment has been completely absent, for the most part, under this government.

But now, Mr. Speaker, things are starting to happen, says the minister. One example is the halved food VAT, which risks becoming an Ica subsidy. It is not ensured that the oligopolistic market is broken up and that the food giants ensure that food prices actually are lowered. It therefore risks becoming a subsidized grant of several billion kronor for Ica and other food giants.

Electricity tax is lowered, the minister claims. That is true, but it returns to the same level as before this government took office. At the same time, this government shall allow the electricity companies to raise their grid fees, which are many times higher than the cost of the electricity consumption itself. Meanwhile, the CEO of Vattenfall will be able to continue to earn 1.5 million kronor every month.

That the penalty tax for people with disabilities has been abolished is very good. We in the opposition have called for this many times, for many years. But after how many job tax credits benefiting the very richest does this happen? That was the priority first, not abolishing the penalty tax for persons with disabilities. How many such job tax credits needed to be added before one finally realized that it was necessary to abolish this penalty tax?

One thing that the minister does not mention, but which hits the group of people with disabilities hard, is the prices of medicines. On July 1 – the same day that Ulf Kristersson found out that he had received a salary increase – the decision was made to raise the ceiling for the high-cost protection for medicines. This means that the sick and people with disabilities have to pay much more, several thousand kronor more, for medicines.

Here we stand and talk about that people with disabilities are the poorest group. They belong to the poorest in Sweden. In the right-wing government's and the Sverigedemokraternas Sweden, people with disabilities go backwards every month.

With the right-wing policy, a person with an intellectual disability goes back at least 1,700 kronor every month or over 20,000 kronor every year, according to FUB's report Trapped in Poverty. The difference is often paid by their relatives, as in the case of Ellen, the 47-year-old woman in the SVT program The Question is Free. She asked Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson how much he earned, whereupon she told that she herself receives over 12,000 kronor before tax in sickness and activity compensation and therefore needs to borrow money from her mother to make the finances work. My question to the minister is: Should we really have it this way in Sweden in 2026?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Äldre- och socialförsäkringsministern Anna Tenje (M)

Mr. Speaker! We can begin by stating once again that we are for lower taxes for persons with sickness and activity compensation. We are for a lower tax on electricity. We are for lower taxes or reduced costs for fuels. We are also for halved food VAT.

As I understand it now, Mr. Speaker, the Left Party is therefore not behind the halved food VAT, which would put more than a thousand kronor in the pocket of a family. It would improve the economy significantly, not just for families with children but for the vast majority in Sweden who are very strongly affected by food prices. But the Left Party is therefore not behind the halved food VAT. It also means that other potential improvements, grants, or benefits in other areas will quickly be eaten up if the Left Party gets to decide. Then one does not get reduced food costs.

The Speaker says that it is now that things are happening. I just want to state that the measures I mentioned earlier, which have been taken by the government, began as early as 2024. Arbetsförmedlingen was then tasked with using its own staff to provide reinforced support to the long-term unemployed, where persons with disabilities are particularly prioritized. For this purpose, the authorities were initially given 79 million, and then 158 million for 2026 and 238 million for 2027. It is precisely because this is so highly prioritized for the government. It is not just about everyone who can work working and that more must enter the workforce, but also about the fact that this concerns the groups that have been left behind the most.

What we have seen is a clear displacement effect for persons with disabilities. That is why it is so important to match so that they get into work and get what they are entitled to, so that their work capacity, to the extent that it exists, is truly utilized. They must not be hidden in the statistics and forgotten, as has been done under previous governments of a different color.

It is also about strengthening the possibilities for search activity, matching, and control. In that regard, we have contributed large sums of money – 100 million in 2026, 200 million in 2027, and an additional 300 million in 2028. The Government has also introduced a new state grant from 4 November 2025 for adults with disabilities who are studying within regional vocational adult education. This grant is given to municipalities and regions to finance staff who provide extra support to students with disabilities.

In the budget proposal for 2026, a reinforcement of the special educational support to folk high schools is also proposed, along with a new targeted grant to facilitate the education of this target group. In order for the opportunities for work to be improved, the government has also appointed an inquiry which, among other things, has proposed that the access to sheltered work should be expanded. The report has been referred previously and is currently being prepared in the Government Offices.

In addition to this, Mr. Speaker, Arbetsförmedlingen has been tasked with carrying out information initiatives to increase employers' information regarding the support available when employing persons with disabilities.

We have taken all these measures precisely because it is so important that everyone should be able to get what they are entitled to, be part of a community and sit around a coffee table and have colleagues, but also so that they can, to a greater extent, stand on their own feet and have a strengthened economy.

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Nadja Awad (V)

Mr. Speaker! I want to begin by talking about the government's fight against the high food prices. I still think there is an enormous difference between what the government has done in recent years to combat the high food prices and what the Left Party has done. The government has chosen to have a coffee with the food giants. Ulf Kristersson and Jimmie Åkesson have stood in the same rostrum that the minister is standing in now and said that food customers simply have to go and shop for food where it is cheapest. This is the decisiveness that the government has shown. The Left Party, on the other hand, has fought for it to be punishable to charge unreasonably high food prices. There, one cannot make any comparison.

Mr. Speaker! I did not receive answers to my questions regarding the small increase in the sickness and activity allowance, the unequal habilitation allowance, and the increase and indexation of the wage subsidy.

Is the increase of the sickness and activity allowance by 83 kronor from an already very low level – is it reasonable? The habilitation allowance can differ depending on where you live in the country, and where you live also affects whether you can get such an allowance at all. Is that reasonable?

We have small businesses that risk going bankrupt. This forces people with disabilities into long-term unemployment, unless the government ensures that the wage subsidy is increased and indexed. What does the government have to say about this?

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Äldre- och socialförsäkringsministern Anna Tenje (M)

Mr. Speaker! I would like to begin by thanking the member for the interpellation and also for a content-rich debate that has dealt with both the one and the other.

I can only state that there are several different ways to strengthen the economy for people. For the person who gets 1,000 kronor more to spend each month, it may matter little whether this happens through increased benefits or through lowered taxes. But for society as a whole, it matters very much. If one then, as the Vänsterpartiet, does not want to stand behind a halved food VAT, then it will not be 1,000 kronor more per month to spend at all. Then, as households, one simply does not have more money left in the wallet.

But thank goodness it is the government that decides those things, and now the Swedish people and Swedish households will get significantly more money in their pockets. You get a lower tax on sickness and activity compensation and on work. You get a lower tax on electricity. You also get a lower tax and halved food VAT, which will strengthen the Swedish households' economy considerably.

Through lower taxes, both those who have the greatest need of strengthened finances and those who work hard can get a better economy. That more people work definitely benefits everyone. That is exactly how the cake grows and tax revenues increase, so that we can distribute to more.

I still believe that the most important thing in the debate we have had today, in which I nevertheless find that we have some consensus, is that we need to make room for significantly more people in our labor market. More must be allowed to come to their rights. The work capacity that so many have must be utilized.

That is why I think it is a bit strange that the member does not take into account that we are currently processing proposals to expand the possibility of sheltered work and to create greater opportunities for more people to return to work or to get their rights through internship and other forms of employment.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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