Devastating for the long-term unemployed On 18 June 2024, the Riksdag decided to implement significant changes in unemployment insurance (a-kassan). Devastating for the long-term unemployed, the disabled, immigrants and many vulnerable professional groups. Save the unemployment fund! Vote here. For the Unemployed: The new reduction in benefits may lead to financial difficulties for the long-term unemployed. These are often disabled or low-educated immigrants. Critics say that…
Category: Labor market issues
The Sweden Democrats are not social democrats
The Sweden Democrats and Neoliberalism's Discontent The far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) have emerged as a decisive political force. The Dissatisfaction Party capitalizes on the dissatisfaction that many Swedes feel with neoliberalism. Neoliberalism brings cutbacks, layoffs, market solutions, deregulation and privatization. In recent decades, this has led to widening gaps between rich and poor. Many ordinary citizens have experienced long-term unemployment,…
Work with good conditions and good wages provides profitability
"One of the most important insights of labor value theory is that what creates economic prosperity is work, not an ever-shrinking national debt. The limit to what the state can do is set by what resources are available. For the social economy, the most important thing is that all available resources (labour, capital, natural resources) are used and used effectively.¹ With this insight, the Social Democrats can leave…
Government: Create more low-wage workers
Tidölaget's strategy is to, after a short time, lower the unemployment fund by 5% every 100 days until it reaches a bottom of SEK 8030 before tax per month. This contrasts with the needs of the long-term unemployed. These are often functionally varied often functionally varied or long-term ill and cannot cope with the low-wage jobs the government advocates to solve...
Harder to survive as unemployed
The government, together with the Sweden Democrats, will put forward a proposal for a new social security fund where income, and not the time worked, should be the basis for the insurance. The government calls it "the biggest reform of Swedish unemployment insurance in 40 years". The proposal is met with mixed reactions. LO calls it a "disaster" and says it is unfair and...
Visitation zones instead of competitiveness
In visitation zones, the police must be able to stop and search people without having a specific suspicion of crime. The idea is that it will make the streets safer, but many are against it. Critics believe that it can lead to abuse and violations of people's rights. This is especially true if it is used against certain groups based on skin color…
Why are Americans so dissatisfied and Trump-positive despite a good labor market
Why are Americans so unhappy? High costs create dissatisfaction in the US despite positive economic news during the Biden administration according to Robert Reich. Reich was the former Democratic Labor Secretary in the United States Expensive housing, food prices and child care Despite positive economic indications, including growth of 3.3 percent in the last quarter of 2023 and an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent,…
Physical meeting places that create positive emotions make sense
Our society's bourgeois line of work limits the social freedom of movement of those who lack paid work and are not old-age pensioners. At the same time, working life is so inhumane that people lose their ethics there. At the same time, people have very little energy left for organized activity after work. As Durkheim wrote, we become human in the encounter with other human beings. But about these meetings…
Work for all provides a more stable, state-regulated mixed economy
Work for all is the goal society must have. Brilliant text on the benefits of full employment and its positive side effects. Niklas Blomqvist questions the idea that the market itself can create full employment. For example, Blomqvist points out that attempts to follow this path in the last thirty years have not produced the desired results. He emphasizes that work for…
Sweden: A strong position during the financial crisis without the euro
No euro helped Sweden's economy Sweden has historically chosen to stay outside the eurozone. This decision has given the country some financial flexibility and freedom of action in times of crisis. A clear example of this was the financial crisis. The affected world economy in 2008/2009. During this period, Sweden was in a position where we could pursue an expansive monetary policy to...