Construction workers came under no such pressure, in large part because of increased government spending on housing. When foreign demand collapsed in the 1930s, workers in the export sectors such as metalworkers accepted large wage reductions in order to stem the decline of employment. Construction workers in Sweden and Norway were highly paid, militant and sheltered from foreign competition. The problem came to a head in both countries in the construction industry. In retrospect, the key innovation was not the crisis policies that were adopted in the 1930s, but the institutional response to the problem that threatened the recovery program ( Moene & Wallerstein, 2006): What would keep the increased government spending from raising the wages of insiders in the labor market, rather than increasing employment? Both governments increased spending on policies such as unemployment benefits, public housing, and agricultural price supports. The main slogan of the social democrats in the 1930s was employment for everybody. Social Democratic governments came to power in Sweden and Norway in the midst of the Great Depression committed to reducing unemployment and alleviating poverty. Robinson, in Handbook of Development Economics, 2010 6.5.1 The rise of the Scandinavian model