Nearly one in ten get disability benefits

NAV,NAV logo. Photo Norway Today Media

Nearly one in ten aged 18 to 67 years is currently disabled. The last year the proportion has increased from 9.4 to 9.5 percent, according to new figures from  Nav.

At the end of June there were 317,700 people receiving disability benefits. This represents 9.5 percent of the population aged 18-67 years. This is an increase of 0.1 percentage points compared with a year ago.

– We expect that the number on disability will increase somewhat during the second half as a result of an increased transition of people from work assessment allowance to disability benefits, said Labor and Welfare Director Sigrun Vågeng.

Over the past year there was a total of 6,000 new recipients of disability benefits. Most of this increase came between September 2015 to May 2016.

The proportion of young disabled people continues to increase. In the age group of between 18- 29 years old  in June 2016 approximately 13,800 were on disability. This represents 1.7 percent of the population in that age group and an increase of 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter.

Disability proportion in recent years has increased in all age groups under 55 years old, while the population over 55 years has had the opposite development.

Disability percentages vary greatly between provinces, from 13.7 per cent in Østfold to 5.4 percent in Oslo. Adjusted for age, the difference is somewhat smaller, but still large.

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today