# Method and data

The figures come from the AHV statistics of the Federal Social Insurance Office (BSV), published in the PxWeb database of the Federal Statistical Office. The recipients, the degrees and the amount paid are from table px-x-1305000000_201, which counts the helplessness allowances of the AHV in December by canton, degree, sex and year. The national values are the same in table px-x-1305000000_202, which counts the same register by age class. The old age pensions are from table px-x-1305000000_102, pension type old age pension, all nationalities and both sexes. Tables px-x-1305000000_201 and px-x-1305000000_102 show an older update date in their metadata, although they hold data to 2025.

Each figure counts December of its year. Two years are two separate December counts, not the same people followed over time. Someone who received the allowance earlier in a year but not in December is not counted. The canton is the canton given in table px-x-1305000000_201; its metadata does not say whether that is the canton of residence or the canton of the paying office. In every year, the recipients of the 26 cantons add up to the Swiss total, and so do their old age pensions.

The rate is the number of recipients divided by the number of old age pensions in the same canton and year, times 1’000, rounded to one decimal. The change in the rate is the 2025 rate minus the 2015 rate, computed before rounding. A change in % is the later figure minus the earlier figure, divided by the earlier figure, rounded to one decimal. The share of a degree is its recipients divided by all recipients.

The amount is the sum paid in December, in thousand francs, as the table records it. The study does not recompute it from the amounts per degree. The average per recipient is the December sum divided by the December recipients.

A canton with fewer than 500 recipients in a year is marked as small numbers for that year.

The study analyses 2015 to 2025; the table holds earlier years too. The amounts of the allowance come from Art. 43bis Abs. 3 and Art. 34 Abs. 5 AHVG in the versions named in the sources.