Madrid, Catalonia and Murcia stand out as the only autonomous communities in Spain to reduce social spending on health, education and social services since the pandemic, according to a study by the Association of Management and Administrators in Social Services. The report shows that while these three areas under regional authority rose by 7 percent from 2019, spending on other policies climbed by 34 percent.
The analysis, drawn from data provided by the Ministry of Finance and the National Institute of Statistics, notes that total current spending on social policies across all communities increased by 8.5 billion euros between 2019 and 2021. The association highlights this shift as a key feature of the post-pandemic budget landscape and emphasizes how public service funding has acted as a barometer for government priorities during crisis and recovery.
According to José Manuel Ramírez, president of the association of social managers, the Covid health crisis underscored the critical role of basic public services such as health, education and social care. Yet the period between 2019 and 2021 saw only a seven percent rise in spending on these community-led policies, while allocations to other areas grew markedly more, fivefold in some cases.
The study also points to a significant increase in state transfers during the same period, totaling 23.701 million euros. Ramírez notes that the overall rise in national funding did not translate evenly into higher social spending across communities, illustrating a growth gap that persisted through the recovery phase. He highlights a 3.5 percent under-growth in healthcare spending when adjusted for the pandemic context, equating to an additional 2,356 million euros that could have supported services more robustly.
Spending on social policies evolved unevenly across the country. With only a few exceptions, most communities spent more per capita in 2021 than in 2019. Catalonia, Madrid and Murcia were notable outliers in this trend. Castilla-La Mancha reported the strongest per-capita escalation at 515 euros, while La Rioja rose by 487 euros. Conversely, reductions occurred in Catalonia by 134 euros, and in Madrid and Murcia by 119 and 65 euros respectively.
When looking at the budget share devoted to social policies, 12 of the 17 communities reduced their allocations. The declines were most pronounced in Madrid, with a 10.18 percent cut, followed by Asturias at 6.72 percent, Extremadura at 5.93 percent, and Catalonia at 5.55 percent.
From a per-capita expenditure standpoint in 2021, Madrid allocated 2,202 euros to social rights, contrasting with Navarra at 3,748 euros and the Basque Country at 3,570 euros. The association laments that it took roughly a decade and a pandemic to bring social spending back to level with prior commitments. The figure of 116.9 million in autonomous social policy expenditure in 2009 was not surpassed until 2019, when 122.5 million was spent.
Meanwhile, spending on other policy domains continued to rise. Adjusted for inflation and population, per-person costs in 2008 stood at 121 euros; by 2021, this figure had surged to 840 euros, underscoring how health, education and social services were pressured as overall public funding grew. The document illustrates that these shifts reflect broader changes in how communities prioritize public services in the aftermath of the health crisis.
The following table lays out the per-capita and annual expenditures allocated to health, education and social policies by the autonomous communities in 2021, alongside the percentage change in the budget for these items from 2019 to 2021.