Recipients and rate of economic social assistance
bfs-social-assistance
- Publisher
- OFS/BFS
- Access method
pxweb- Table id
px-x-1304030000_121- Licence
- BFS terms of use OPEN-BY: "Open use. Must provide the source."
- Coverage
- Geography national · period calendar year · from 2005 · to 2025
- Gaps
- Switzerland only (the table also has cantons); both sexes and every civil status together. Nationality and age are crossed. The table publishes no rate for recipients whose nationality or age is not known (rate empty). 2005–2008 are extrapolated from a sample of communes (BFS); the parts may miss the total by one person.
- Used on
- WORK, PROB poverty-cost-of-living.social-assistance
- Known limits
- Who counts: every person in a supported household (Unterstützungseinheit) who received economic social assistance at least once in the calendar year, children included, so a household of four counts four times. The rate is the number of recipients per 100 residents of the same group (BFS: recipients of the survey year ÷ permanent resident population on 31 December of the previous year, STATPOP). Cross-check with bfs-statpop-age-structure: dividing the published counts by STATPOP of the previous year reproduces the published rates within 0.1 percentage point (they are published with one decimal); this is a durable check in pnpm checks:run (facts). In 2025, 8 919 recipients have no known nationality (2 060 in 2024), so the Swiss and foreign counts are slightly too low and comparisons over time must allow for it. Support in the asylum and refugee area financed by the Confederation is published by BFS in separate statistics and is not included here. Social assistance and other benefits (supplementary benefits, unemployment insurance) are separate systems: their counts must not be added up.
- Processed file
- data/processed/bfs-social-assistance.csv
How current is this data?
- Freshness
- Up to date
According to its update rhythm, no newer edition is expected yet.
- Period covered
- 2005–2025
- Last change of the data
- Last check of the source
- Update rhythm
- Yearly
Ledger note (in English): Yearly, in the autumn of the next year (2025 data on 27.10.2026).
- Votara checks the source
- Every week, and every day from 3 days before to 14 days after an announced publication date
The state is computed each time the site is built; this page shows it as of . Results of the accuracy checks
Transformations
- PxWeb POST (json-stat2): Kanton Schweiz (0), sex total (0), civil status total (0), every age class, nationality category and year; both measures "Anzahl Sozialhilfebeziehende" (1) and "Sozialhilfequote" (3, in %). Values copied as published. Script: scripts/fetch/bfs-social-assistance.ts
- nationality: 0 total, 1 swiss, 2 foreign, 99 unknown; age_class: 0 total, 1 0-17, 2 18-25, 3 26-35, 4 36-45, 5 46-55, 6 56-64, 7 65+, 99 unknown. The fetcher checks the age-class labels and that the categories add up to the total (0.1 % tolerance for the extrapolated early years).