Insurance Institute and other sources.In addition to this policy of reducing inequality by refraining from collecting taxes from those with low incomes and by providing them with financial assistance, the government also works to reduce inequality by directly providing services such as education, health and culture that, while benefiting the entire population, are of greater benefit to those with lower incomes. The amount spent on these social services, both in absolute terms and in terms of the proportion of the total public expenditure spent on these services, has risen over the years, especially in the past two decades, during which the defense burden, as a percentage of the national product, began to decline. However, not only has the real value of the budget for these services more than doubled over the course of the past decade - with its weight in the average disposable income of households rising from 17% to 23% - but the contribution that these services make to the reduction of inequality has increased, especially with the recent introduction of national health insurance in Israel. Thus, while the economic income of the lowest decile equals only 8% of the income of the highest decile (a slight improvement as compared with 6.6% 40 years ago), the payments that they receive and the fact that their income tax and national insurance payments equal less than 2% of that of the highest decile, raise their disposable income to 19% of that of the highest decile. When one also takes into account the services that are provided directly by the government, the inequality is reduced even further, raising the lowest decile's actual income (financial plus the value of services provided) to 27% of that of the highest decile. This is 3.4 times more than before government intervention.IndustryOf all the branches of the Israeli economy, industry has grown the most: its growth rate is higher than that of the total national product; industrial expor...
