Larger social spending budgets have not produced any net loss of GDP, or in skills, or in work. Without any such costs, Europe’s welfare states have produced greater equality, cleaner government, and even longer life. So says the international evidence for any decade or combination of decades back to 1880, before which there was little social spending at all. The belief that greater social spending must somehow shrink the size of the economic pie is in trouble, and is likely to keep retreating in the wake of the slump of 2020.