The increasing costs of population growth in Sweden, drivenalmost
entirely mass migration, have forced the government to seriously consider
raising the national retirement age to pay for the additional costs.
Swedish Socialist party
Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson announced that the retirement age
would likely be raised in the near future in order to offset increased welfare
costs, Swedish newspaper Expressen reports.
“Looking at
those who start working at 30, there should be opportunities to work longer
than 65,” Andersson said.
The
minister made her remarks following an economic report from the Local
Authorities and County Council (SKL) released earlier this week. The report
claimed that the welfare state would grow faster than revenue obtained through
taxation due to the dramatic rise of Sweden’s population.
Due to the influx of
migrants during the migrant crisis and Sweden’s growing birthrate, the
population of the country has expanded faster than
almost any other European country.
Some Swedish cities, like
the southern city of Malmo, owe their population growth almost entirely to
mass migration from predominantly Middle Eastern countries.
The SKL
study claims there is a 47 billion SEK (£4.1 billion) gap between current
revenue and welfare state costs that will have to be made up either by tax
increases or increasing the retirement age.
While migrants are
increasing the cost of the Swedish welfare state in terms of added
infrastructure and cost for services, many are unemployed and directly on
welfare. A recent report showed that while the native Swedish unemployment rate
was around 3.9 percent, it stood at 21.8 percent for
Swedish residents from foreign backgrounds.
A 2016 report claimed that
the one-year cost of the migrant crisis for the Swedish taxpayer could amount
to as much as 600 billion Swedish
Kronor (£48.3 billion), enough to pay for the national armed forces for
the next 14 years. Stockholm University associate professor Jan Tullberg
made the calculations based on welfare and housing costs, education costs and
other factors.
