During the Times of Economy Crisis, Which Expenditure Do You Think the Government Should Reduce? Education, Health Care or Support for Unemployment

During the times of economy crisis, governments should reduce the expenditure of education because maintaining a certain level of investment in health care and unemployment subsidies is essential for the social stability.

First, the investment in education has little effect on economy in a short period of time. Instead, public education is often seen as an investment in our future. Some people may argue that increasing the education budget can provide more job opportunities for teachers, and this can help to stimulate the economic development. However, such kind of stimulation is too limited in the economy crisis. In fact, the effect of education is more reflected on young generations. We need time to make the education investment helpful to the overall economic growth, and the length of the time is often longer than the duration of the economy crisis.

Second, the expenditure on health care and support for unemployment is necessary during the times of economy crisis. Obviously, unemployment rate would increase and a lot of people would get fired if a financial crisis broke out. Workers often go on a strike on the street, but the potential risk is that they may be taken advantage of by some radicals and some anti-government protests even turn into riots. Therefore, the priority of the government is to make the tense situation less severe by giving those laid-off workers enough unemployment compensation. This step can make their lives easier during such a hard period and give them more confidence about the future. Also, medical expense is always unaffordable for those unemployed workers. So the government should really maintain a certain level of expenditure on health care.

Based on the above discussion, I would argue that during the times of economy crisis, the government could reduce the education budget first as a temporary means if necessary. After all, the social stability is more important for a government in the economy crisis than the future benefits...