Social cuts don't save money

Social cuts don't save money, they just postpone the bill
by Lisa Duschek

[This article posted on December 27, 2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.moment.at/story/sozialkuerzungen-eine-dumme-rechnung/.]

Not every kind of saving makes sense
While social spending and projects are being cut across Austria, hardly any of the decision-makers are thinking about the consequences or the costs that this will entail in the future. That's because some savings are an expensive gift—paid for with a loan from the future.

Vienna and all of Austria are facing a new round of social spending cuts. Subsidies are being frozen or eliminated, benefits restricted, and access made more difficult. The reasoning usually sounds something like this: austerity measures, budget shortfalls, “tightening our belts.”
But this logic is short-sighted and dangerous. Social cuts do not save money, they only shift costs. And they shift them to areas where they will be significantly higher later on.

A foolish calculation
Social spending is not charity, but an investment in stability and security. It prevents problems from becoming big or escalating. Those who cut back on social work, counseling, labor market integration, housing subsidies, or psycho-social support today will pay more tomorrow for the healthcare system, police, justice, minimum income, sick leave, or long-term unemployment. These correlations are well documented by studies, but are regularly ignored by politicians.

Vienna in particular illustrates this dynamic very clearly. The city is growing, social inequality is increasing, and psychological stress is on the rise. At the same time, the very services that intervene early on are coming under pressure: low-threshold counseling centers, outreach social work, projects for families affected by poverty, women, young people, or people with a migration background. If cuts are made here, the problems do not disappear—oddly enough. Instead, they shift. From the social center to the emergency room. From the youth project to the police station. From prevention to crisis.

A similar pattern can be seen throughout Austria. Social benefits are increasingly being questioned on grounds of efficiency and abuse, while follow-up costs are hardly ever discussed or calculated. It is politically easier to present short-term savings than to account for long-term costs. This way, you can show that you are doing something and that money is being saved. Or so it seems.

The costs haven't gone away, they're just somewhere else
What's particularly problematic is that the follow-up costs rarely fall on the same ministry, department, or budget. Savings in the social sector later burden the health or justice system. Cuts in municipalities often generate costs at the state or federal level later on. This shift makes it easy to shirk responsibility and difficult to honestly balance the overall costs.

Added to this is a social blind spot: social cuts do not affect “everyone,” but rather very specific groups. People with low incomes, single parents, those in precarious employment, the chronically ill, people with disabilities. For them, cuts often mean a loss of stability and thus a higher risk of falling out of the system permanently. Once something is lost, it is expensive to get it back.

The central question should therefore be: What does it cost not to invest? What does it cost when school dropouts are not prevented? Untreated depression? Impending eviction? Failed labor market integration? These costs do not appear in any savings calculations, but they are real, measurable, and extremely important for society.

Estimating follow-up costs – coming soon
This is exactly where our next project comes in. In the coming year, Moment.at will systematically record where social benefits are being cut in Vienna and Austria and what follow-up costs this may entail. We want to not only document political announcements, but also analyze their real impact on health, the labor market, housing, education, and public safety. The goal is to make visible what currently remains invisible.

Because true political and financial responsibility does not mean cutting costs where people are most vulnerable. It means thinking long-term and understanding prevention not as a luxury, but as a necessity.