Five points about the spring budget that you must not miss

On Monday, the government presented its spring budget.

Investments totaling SEK 17.5 billion are being made at a time when Sweden has rising unemployment, high inflation and a construction sector in crisis.

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1. The biggest bets

The largest, and therefore most important for the government, investments are made in health care, the Correctional Service, the E6, schools and defence.

Healthcare receives SEK 6 billion, which goes to the country’s regions. This can be compared with the deficit of SEK 24 billion that Sweden’s municipalities and regions have calculated.

As the government changes its criminal policy, the hope is that more criminals will be imprisoned. This puts pressure on the Correctional Service, which must take care of inmates and also build more prison places. Therefore, the authority receives 1.4 billion extra in addition to the previous budget.

After the big landslide on the E6 at Stenungsund, more money is needed for repairs. The government is pushing 1 billion specifically for that.

The government also allocates SEK 500 million to the municipalities’ school operations and SEK 300 million is invested in the defense of Sweden.

2. It will get better, but not right now

The government predicts that Sweden will continue to be in a recession during the next year as well. Then the lightening can come.

But until then, unemployment will also increase. Another 40,000 people will become unemployed in the next year, according to Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson (M). For 2024, unemployment will be 8.3 percent, in 2025 it will be 8.4 percent.

Bankruptcies continue to rise and have been at very high levels and in the construction industry, a major employer and engine of growth, things are at a standstill in many places.

What speaks for a brighter future is that the rise in inflation is starting to slow down and the goal of two percent can soon be reached, the finance minister believes.

3. The opposition is raging

It is neither unexpected nor anything new that the opposition saws the government’s budget – that is what an opposition should do.

However, the criticism from the four opposition parties looks about the same. The parties are worried about unemployment and criticize that too little is being done to speed up growth – and thus job creation.

S, V and MP highlight the healthcare crisis in particular. The parties want to see more money for the regions to invest in healthcare. The Left Party is the only party that has yet presented a figure: SEK 15 billion.

4. The pressure from one’s own ranks

From the right, the criticism of Elisabeth Svantesson’s spring budget is quite extensive. Expectations for tax cuts and initiatives that boost the economy are high, but are not met by the content of the spring budget.

Swedish Business Confederation says that there is a lack of concrete proposals for growth reforms. And the requirement is now that this be “the government’s last crisis budget”, as chief economist Sven-Olov Daunfeldt says.

The Timbro think tank is also critical. Mainly, it is the lack of tax breaks that angers the ideologues at the think tank. Timbro is also critical of the government’s spending of SEK 6 billion on healthcare.

5. New measure to be able to whip on the work line

In her spring budget, Elisabeth Svantesson takes the opportunity to introduce a new measure: Self-sufficiency. The idea is to produce statistics on how many people can support themselves, without support from the state.

The limit that the government has set is SEK 19,050 per month before tax, i.e. approximately SEK 15,800 per month after tax.

The measure can, and will, be used politically to be able to argue for the so-called “work line” that the government wants to pursue, with lower income taxes and lower subsidies.

If the government can point to the fact that a number of people cannot support themselves, then one can make a stronger case for making changes intended to change that. On the table is, among other things, a contribution ceiling.