On Mar 5, 2007, at 9:17 PM, Bill Bartlett wrote:
> I don't understand what you mean by "level of social spending". Do
> you mean government expenditure on health and welfare? If so then you
> must realise that the statistics you quote are meaningless, since US
> social spending on things like health care, education, pensions etc
> defined as private. But Maybe I'm missing the point?
Yeah, you are, because if the spending is private, it depends on your having the money to make the expenditure. That's not true of universal public programs.
[WS:] It is a little bit more complicated than that. First, education is generally not considered 'social spending' - the latter includes health, sickness benefits, social/family service, old age protection, disability benefits, family benefits, housing benefits, and unemployment. But more importantly, 'public' social spending includes both government and mandatory private outlays (which can be though of as a form of taxation)
cf. http://stats.oecd.org/OECDStatDownloadFiles/OECDSOCX2007InterpretativeGuide_ En.pdf
Wojtek