Child poverty: 467,000 lives waiting

I read last week that a person who commutes to work on the Cercanías (local train) loses an average of 46 hours each year waiting for delayed trains. I understand the despair of those who suffer this absurdity and the impact it has on society. Despite these very different problems, I can't help but draw the analogy with child poverty. How long have we known that one in three children in our country suffers? Until when will we repeat that addressing it must be a priority? How does the situation of those who suffer deteriorate while they wait for solutions?

In Catalonia, 467,000 children live at risk of poverty or social exclusion. And it's a deep-rooted problem: in the last 10 years, we haven't dropped below 400,000 (only slightly in 2016), and the proportion of affected children has always been above 30%. We know the magnitude of the problem and we insist, but the years go by, and we find it again in every Idescat survey on living conditions.

We also talk a lot about solutions. It's positive that we're doing so, and that, between the previous and current governments, a strategy to combat child poverty in Catalonia was agreed upon, to be implemented by 2030. But the problem is time. While poverty strikes every day and with maximum speed, without respite, political action moves slowly, completely out of sync.

Let's give some examples. We've been repeating for years that our benefits and pensions have a completely insufficient impact on children, as they only reduce child poverty by 25%. For other ages, however, these benefits reduce poverty by half and up to 80% for those over 65. We will abandon those we should protect the most because we have benefits that were born lame: the guaranteed citizen income, the minimum living income, and the child support supplement offer insufficient amounts, leave out many families, and are very slow to process.

We know what to improve, but we're slow to remedy it. The guaranteed citizen income was created in 2017, and a proposal to reform it has been underway in Parliament for years. If ultimately approved, it will incorporate a supplementary income for dependent children, among other measures. This would be a partial improvement, because scientific evidence tells us that a universal benefit for dependent children is the most effective aid model for combating child poverty. Other countries also point this out: most countries in Central and Northern Europe already implement this policy.

Second example: the Department of Social Rights and Inclusion has announced that it intends to strengthen prevention in the child protection system. To begin with, we shouldn't be talking about a political commitment, but rather about strict compliance with a fundamental element of the Law on the Rights and Opportunities of Children and Adolescents, which was approved in Parliament... 15 years ago! But how do we do this, when the Specialized Child and Adolescent Care Services only serve 11% of children living in severe poverty? How do we address less serious cases, where there is still room for prevention, with social services overwhelmed? The law also states that protecting children should be a budgetary priority, yet we continue to allocate 1% of GDP, far from the European Union average of 2.5%, according to the latest annual report on children's rights by the Catalan Ombudsman.

Third and final example: How many more experts must repeat to us that education from birth to age 6 is key to breaking the cycle of poverty? Have we taken advantage of the last 15 years to create more daycare places? No, simply and plainly. Although the sharp drop in the birth rate explains why we have a higher proportion of children enrolled in school today, in 2023 we had 15,000 fewer students at this stage than in 2011. When we recovered the investment, we started from the roof up: in terms of equity, it makes no sense to provide all children with girls and improve social pricing. Especially when we know that the most disadvantaged children have less access to a childcare center.

Meanwhile, families aren't waiting for solutions. They're swimming against the current, spiraling downward to continue breathing with water around their necks. With jobs that often don't allow them to make ends meet, prohibitive housing prices, and the stifling impact of inflation. And the children? They suffer in their emotional well-being, health, and learning. By arriving late, we're not only neglecting them, but also condemning their children: when parents have grown up in difficult economic circumstances, 6 out of 10 children inherit poverty, as economist Sara Ayllón has studied. If we want to avoid this, we stop being late and put the resources in place.