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11. These numbers are household rather than individual recipient numbers.
We find that since the start of the crisis, singles without children represent the largest fraction of
recipient households in all municipalities, followed by single parents with 1‐2 kids and couples
without or with 1‐2 kids. The proportion of households with more than 2 kids is very low in all
municipalities. A strong rise in the share of singles without kids since the start of the observation
period is observed for Riga. We moreover find a large increase in non‐employable individuals in
early 2008, which however disappears again during the crisis.
The analysis is based on information the SOPA data base, which contains micro‐level data on receipt
of GMI, housing benefits, and ‘other benefits’ for 109 Latvian municipalities and 9 cities (Kandava
municipality is the only missing municipality). The SOPA system was rolled out in Latvian
municipalities from 2005 at different times and we use data for the seven municipalities / cities for
which we find that the SOPA data are complete enough since the year 2006. The basis for this
selection is a comparison of the figures we calculate using the SOPA with the aggregate figures
provided by the Ministry of Welfare. We do not use any data for the year 2005 because for this
year, we do not have any comparison data. Our observation period is thus 1/2006 to 7/2012, i.e. 91
monthly waves.
The criterion we use for determining data quality is that the deviation of the number we calculate
from official figures should be smaller than 20%. For Jurmala, Riga, and Valmiera, data quality is
best and deviations are below 10% in all years; Ventspils and Liepaja have in some years deviations
between 10‐15% or 15‐20%, respectively; there is a deviation of more than 20% in one single year
for Preili municipality (2009) and Rezekne (2010), but we include these nonetheless. For most
other municipalities, data of sufficient quality is only available for 2010 or 2011.
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12. These graphs plot again the number of individuals. Children and working‐age individuals are
the largest recipient groups in all cities, with the number of recipients aged over 60 years
being very low. We find that the proportions of individuals from the four different age
groups have again remained remarkably stable over time. For Riga, we observe a fall in the
proportion of children on benefits and an increase in the number of senior recipients aged
above 50 or 60. We also find that the temporary increase in non‐employable recipients
observed earlier for the year 2008 coincides with an increase in over 60‐year olds. In the
remaining six municipalities / cities, we find a light increase in working‐age recipients.
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13. Nearly all GMI recipients also receive Housing Benefits (because adding the GMI recipients
that do not receive HB to the HB line doesn’t change much…; (if all HB recipients received
GMI, the GMI line would be much higher)
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14. ‐Largest group are individuals in households w/o children and single parents (top 3 curves
in the recent years)
‐Not shown: After 2009, significant increase of “non‐employable” households (disabled,
old‐age).
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15. ‐After 2009: very large increase in number of working‐age people
‐Large increase for “older workers” 50+
‐Biggest increase in 2010 possible explanation: inflow of people who lost UB
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17. ‐ Spells longer after Crisis (even though many more censored spells!)
‐ Drop after 3 months….
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18. ‐In 55% of the cases in which an individual returns to GMI after an earlier spell the gap
between these two spells is only 1 month!
‐So, long‐term benefit receipt is much more frequent than suggested by the short spell‐
lengths given above.
Here, the histogram itself probably adds very little value; when I split the sample in 2009, I
find that 50% of off‐welfare spells before return to welfare are one month only, compared
to nearly 60% for the years 2009 and after
‐Important: this time spent off‐welfare after a GMI spell of people who return to GMI
during our observation period;
‐as illustrated below, 40% of individuals however only have one single spell and remain off‐
GMI afterwards
‐Note: these are individuals’ rather than households’ spells because households might split
up before the next spell starts
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19. ‐ total time spent on welfare across all spells per individual
‐the distribution has a fat right tail, which suggests that a relatively large proportion stays
on GMI for an extended period of time (either through few long spells or many short spells)
‐ the people 'in the left' of the distribution have only a single short spell and do not return;
of course, this might partly be due to the short observation period
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20. ‐Falling amounts since 2010  Recovery?
‐Especially once inflation accounted for
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