From historical trends to investment pathways - Social protection expenditure

Following two decades of gradually increasing social protection investment in the region, social protection came to the fore in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic as a core component of fiscal response packages. [...] The Support Fund for the Unemployed program was introduced in 2020 (although had been planned before the onset of COVID-19) and in that year became one of the largest social assistance schemes in the region. [...] The sharp increase in expenditure in 2020 results primarily from the lowering of the age of eligibility to 60 years and the quadrupling of the benefit to AUD 200 per month. [...] The introduction of the Senior Citizens’ Benefit (at that time called the Elderly Fund) appears to have been linked to the 2003 election (AusAID, 2012), and the significant increase of the benefit in 2020 followed election promises made in 2019 by the government at the time (and current government) to improve and properly legislate assistance to the elderly. [...] 20 Annex 1 Method for classification of social protection expenditure The classification of social protection expenditure in this paper is based on the economic classification (Expense) and the functional classification, (COFOG) of expenditure as described in the International Monetary Fund’s Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM).14 In essence, the analysis seeks to cross-tabulate all expend.