This is shown by SSB’s new analysis of the statistics for financial social assistance.
The main findings are that there has been a significant increase in the payment of social assistance and in recipients of social assistance. They have respectively increased by 32 per cent and 21,500 recipients from the previous year. A total of NOK 9.7 billion was paid out, distributed among 152,000 recipients.
In addition, the proportion of immigrants who receive social assistance has increased, and people with a national background other than Norway receive the largest proportion of the payments and make up the majority of recipients.
Immigrants made up 80,577 recipients of the benefit in 2023, while the general population made up 66,902 recipients. After people with a background from Norway, the largest share of the total payments went to immigrants with a background from Ukraine, then Syria, Somalia and Iraq.
We also see the biggest increase in social assistance recipients among immigrants, with an increase of approximately 25 per cent from 2022, while for the general population the increase was around 8 per cent.
Certain groups differ in how long they receive benefits. The statistics also show that close to 40 per cent of recipients with a rural background from Somalia and Iraq received social assistance for ten to twelve months in 2023.
This was followed by recipients from Afghanistan, Russia and Syria with between 31 and 33.6 per cent. This percentage was 15.8 per cent for recipients from Poland, and 14.6 per cent for recipients from Norway.
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