The Welfare State Causes “Sickness”

Sweden suffers from the world’s highest reported disability rate. This does not mean people there are actually sick, to be fair, but it does show that the welfare state creates bad incentives. People with weak values learn that they can feed at the public trough instead of doing something productive with their lives. A Wall Street Journal story explains how Swedish policy makers are trying to reverse the damage:

Swedes are among the healthiest people in the world according to the World Health Organization. And yet 13% of working‐​age Swedes live on some type of disability benefit — the highest proportion on the globe. To explain this, many Swedish policy makers, doctors and economists blame a welfare system that is too lax and does little to verify individual claims. … [G]overnments from Finland to Portugal are trying to cut back and get more people to work. Sweden’s bloated sick bay, which includes roughly 744,000 people on extended leave, has caused soul‐​searching about whether the system coddles Swedes and encourages them to feel sick. … During the 2002 monthlong World Cup soccer finals, short‐​term sick leave among Swedish men suspiciously rose by 55%. Earlier this year, police in Sweden’s capital city Stockholm investigated the local chapter of the Hell’s Angels biker gang for suspected benefit fraud, because 70% of the gang were on extended sickness benefits. The same doctor had certified them all as suffering from depression. … In Europe, roughly 20% of the working‐​age population — or 60 million people — depend on various government benefits as their sole or main income, compared with 13% in the U.S. That’s a major economic handicap. … Assar Lindbeck, one of Sweden’s best‐​known economists, says the lenient welfare state has changed the country over the past generation. In place of the old Protestant work ethic, it has become acceptable to feel unable to work and to live on benefits, he says. “I would not call it cheating,” Prof. Lindbeck says. “I would call it a drift in attitudes and social norms.”