"I'm not collecting my pension because I was short two days of contributions."

BarcelonaNot everyone who is entitled to social benefits receives them. Some don't even apply for them because they either don't know they're entitled to them or don't even apply for them. This is a phenomenon known as non-take-up or coverage gap, leaving thousands of vulnerable people without protection. It is estimated that in Catalonia, 79% of families with children who could receive the childhood supplement do not; 18% of people who meet the requirements for the guaranteed citizen income do not benefit, and 66% of potential users of the minimum living income (IMV) do not either.

This is the case of Juan Fernández, a 66-year-old Barcelona resident who was left jobless at a bar by the COVID lockdowns and unable to obtain adequate assistance using online procedures to process an income to survive. In the midst of this process, a cancer diagnosis a few months later permanently removed him from the labor market, and Social Security unexpectedly denied his request to collect his retirement pension. "I was two days short of contributions," he explains. The administration did not make it easy to resolve the situation, and he finally receives a non-contributory pension. Together with his mother, they earn just under 800 euros a month.

For the Minister of Social Rights and Inclusion, Mònica Martínez Bravo, the situation of these people who are left uncovered is a "waste of resources for Catalonia," and she notes that the system has many loopholes that make it impossible to reduce poverty rates, despite the money invested. In fact, one in four Catalans lives in poverty, a percentage that rises to one in three in the case of children.

What causes this non-take-up, that is, this passing up of a benefit or social program that could make life easier for the hypothetical beneficiaries? The factors are multiple and range from the fragmentation of more than a hundred public aid programs to the sum of incompatibilities between them and the opposing criteria in a convoluted bureaucratic circuit for vulnerable people. At an event organized this Friday by the Third Sector Roundtable on the occasion of the Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the minister herself rejected the speeches that accuse social sectors of "living off their paychecks" and admitted that "there are people who don't even want to hear about benefits, although "it must be complicated" because "management is very necessary" and "undue payments" due to administrative error.

This is the error that affected Leire Simarro. A former DGAIA tutee, the young woman studies at university and was one of the recipients of the Social Rights Charters Demanding that they repay thousands of euros in improper payments, most of which were due to a lack of oversight or delays in the processing of these benefits. On the same day, Simarro highlighted the difficulties in understanding the technical language of the letters, which drove them to despair at having to repay between 10,000 and 36,000 euros. Finally, the regional ministry announced that it will forgive the debt, given that most of these young people had reported changes in their circumstances that prevented them from continuing to receive aid as former wards.

Bureaucratic language

Montse Vilarrassa, 45, a member of the Down Catalunya association and with a long career, also highlighted the barriers the administration puts up when requesting benefits or contacting them with any questions. Complex administrative language, a lack of easy-to-read materials, limited facilities to help understand written or oral instructions, inaccessible online procedures, certificates and codes with identification, mandatory appointments that require online processing or excessive waiting times, and little training or empathy from professionals to care for people with intellectual disabilities are some of the grievances.

The government has planned to organize the long list of benefits to make them clearer and more compatible and, starting next year, has pledged to promote a one-stop shop for the IMV (Mexican Social Security) and the RGC (General Contribution to Social Security), which should also be compatible with a job to encourage beneficiaries to enter the labor market. The minister said that benefits are the best way to end social inequalities, since taxes only redistribute 2% of wealth. How can the system be made more efficient? The formula is to move toward universalization, as countries like Italy are already doing, said the president of the Working Group, Xavier Trabado.