SOCIAL SERVICES
The government expenditure budget* for social services in 1996 is NIS 87.9 billion, which is approximately 23% of Israel's GDP.
Social Services Expenditure (Including Development Budgets): 1998(In billions of NIS)
NII benefits (including those funded by the Treasury) |
**31.7 |
Education and culture (including NIS 946 million in the development budget) |
20.5 |
Higher education |
4.5 |
Labor and social affairs |
3.3 |
The Health System (Ministry of Health budget and health tax) |
19.6 |
Immigrant absorption |
1.6 |
Others (local authorities, religious affairs, benefits for the disabled) |
6.6 |
Total |
**87.8 |
*
Including National Insurance Institute expenditure for pensions and transfers to the Sick Funds in the framework of the State Health Insurance Law.**
Estimate
According to data of the Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, government expenditure for social services, including direct services and transfer payments (without immigrant absorption and housing), increased by 30% in real terms in the 1980's (1980-1989). From an analysis, it emerges that there was a high real increase (75%) in transfer payments, compared with negligible growth of government expenditure for direct services (without absorption and housing), which increased by 5% only.
During the same period, according to research data, the share of transfer payments in the GDP increased: from 4.7% in 1980 to 6.4% in 1989. Government expenditure for direct services, on the other hand, decreased from approximately 11% in 1980 to 9% in 1989.
Evolution of Social Services Expenditure in the 1990'sSince the beginning of the 1990's there has been a clear-cut change in the social services expenditure trend, both relative to transfer payments and in-kind services. From 1989 to 1997, transfer payments rose by 62% and government expenditure for direct services (not including absorption and housing) by 79%.*
The total increase in transfer payments from 1989 to 1997 was NIS 8 billion (in 1995 prices)*. This is a result of natural population growth, of the increase in the real wage and of several changes in the field of transfer payments, which accorded greater rights to people receiving benefits (principally abolition of means tests for child-allowance in 1993, elimination of the army veterans' child allowances in favor of identical allowance points for the entire population in the years 1993-1996, and legislative reforms for reduction of poverty in the years 1994-1995).
In the field of direct services, there was a conspicuously high increase in allocation of resources to education. Real expenditure in this field increased by 90% from 1989 to 1997 (about NIS 9 billion in 1995 prices).
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