The OECD Social Expenditure Database (SOCX) has been developed in order to serve a growing need for indicators of social policy. It includes reliable and internationally comparable statistics on public and mandatory and voluntary private social expenditure at program level. SOCX provides a unique tool for monitoring trends in aggregate social expenditure and analyzing changes in its composition. It covers 38 OECD countries and some accession countries for the period 1980-2021/23 and estimates for aggregates for 2022-24. A Social Expenditure Update can be found under this page. The main social policy areas are as follows: Old age, Survivors, Incapacity-related benefits, Health, Family, Active labor market programs, Unemployment, Housing, and Other social policy areas. This version also includes estimates of net total social spending for 2021 for 38 OECD countries. SOCX aggregated data as well as sources and methodology are described in The OECD SOCX Manual – 2019 edition- A guide to the OECD Social Expenditure Database.

After the OECD Conference on Social Policies in the 1980s, held in October 1980, and in light of the discussion of budgetary issues by the Economic Policy Committee, a Group of Experts on the Growth and Control of Social Expenditure met at the OECD in October 1983 under the auspices of the Manpower and Social Affairs Committee. The Chairman of the Group, Mr. R. Maldague of the Belgian Planning Commission, presented a report on the meeting to the 60th Session of the MSA Committee in December 1983. The Committee then recommended that the Secretariat prepare a report on social expenditure. After review by members of the Committee in July 1984, this report is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General.

Growing Public examines the question of whether social policies that redistribute income impose constraints on economic growth. Taxes and transfers have been debated for centuries, but only now can we get a clear view of the whole evolution of social spending. What kept prospering nations from using taxes for social programs until the end of the nineteenth century? Why did taxes and spending then grow so much, and what are the prospects for social spending in this century? Why did North America become a leader in public education in some ways and not others? Lindert finds answers in the economic history and logic of political voice, population aging, and income growth. Contrary to traditional beliefs, the net national costs of government social programs are virtually zero. This book not only shows that no Darwinian mechanism has punished the welfare states, but uses history to explain why this surprising result makes sense. Contrary to the intuition of many economists and the ideology of many politicians, social spending has contributed to, rather than inhibited, economic growth.