Catalonia 'seeks' poor families to receive more aid
A group of experts is advocating for the creation of a supplementary benefit to pay for housing as a strategy to combat child poverty.
BarcelonaThe Generalitat (Catalan Government) is seeking families with children who are entitled to child benefit and who, for various reasons, are not receiving it. This is one of the measures proposed by the Committee of Experts for Transformation and Social Innovation (CETIS), which a few months ago was commissioned by the Ministry of Social Rights to find ways to reduce the child poverty rate, which stands at 34% and which, in the words of Minister Mònica Martínez Bravo, is "the lowest even in Spain (29.2%). In fact, only Bulgaria (35%) surpasses it.
One third of Catalan children are at risk of or experiencing social exclusion, and of these, 14% "are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable," as they lack basic necessities. However, the range of aid and benefits based on income has proven ineffective in ending this scourge, which is why experts believe that schools or other sources must be used to identify poverty and combat it. This situation is evident in the CAPI, the child aid supplement to the state minimum living income, which in Catalonia Only a little over 20% of families who meet the eligibility criteria receive it. The regional minister reiterated this Monday that her intention is to increase coverage to at least 40%, that is, double the current value.
The CAPI, being a state benefit, is calculated based on state income criteria, and since Catalonia is richer than average, it ultimately suffers because the poverty line is too low. On this point, CETIS experts point out that it is necessary to review the thresholds for the Catalan Guaranteed Citizen Income (RGC) as well as take advantage of the future one-stop shop for social benefits to create a more streamlined and automated system, so that vulnerable families do not have to struggle with bureaucracy and suffer for failing to comply.
Along these lines, experts advocate rethinking who can receive benefits and advise looking beyond family income and earnings, because it has already been confirmed that The skyrocketing price of housing is impoverishing families. The situation is even more serious if you live in rented accommodation and in overcrowded areas, where the market is more strained and, therefore, some families must allocate up to 60% of their salary to paying the ceiling, a percentage much higher than the recommended third. Thus, one of the recommendations is to take this housing cost into account and, as is done with the CAPI, create a housing supplement that also covers families who are excluded from the guaranteed income or the IMV (Ministry of Housing and Urban Development) due to their higher incomes.
Birth allowance
Catalonia, like Spain, is one of the minority of EU countries that has abandoned universal child benefits and limited them to income-based benefits. According to experts, these benefits have proven ineffective in ending extreme poverty. This failure is partly due to bureaucratic complexity, a barrier the department is working to address with technological management and increased staffing at benefits offices to streamline payments while avoiding errors that lead to improper payments.
There are also other factors that make it difficult to collect benefits. On the one hand, there is a lack of awareness of what benefits are available and, on the other, the "embarrassment" of receiving them, experts say. Therefore, the creation of a new universal benefit for the first or second year of a child's life is proposed. In this way, CETIS specialists believe that vulnerable families will have their first direct contact with the administration. From there, the link would be maintained with the most vulnerable families who were entitled to other benefits. This "strategy" has a double benefit: for the beneficiary families and also for public administrations, which could reduce bureaucracy.
The minister praised the experts' recommendations and emphasized that the report coincides with the reform of the guaranteed income currently before Parliament and the launch of the one-stop shop for benefits, planned for next year.
