Poverty is falling in Catalonia, but it is increasing among children

BarcelonaMore than 412,000 children under 16 living in Catalonia are poor, which is equivalent to 34.8% of the total population of this age group. Social entities and the Ombudsman have been warning for many years about the risks of so many minors living in families with material deficiencies that impact on their future expectations, since not even social shields in the form of benefits are strong enough to reduce inequality of opportunity. The data on child poverty is taken from the latest Survey of Living Conditions published this Thursday by the Institute of Statistics (Idescat), which, on the contrary, indicates that the rate of poverty and social exclusion in the population as a whole has been reduced in this last year by 0.4 points, a very low decrease compared to the current social situation: however, 24% of Catalans (one in four) live in poverty with deficiencies of all kinds in their daily lives.

In this reduction of poverty, children under 16 years of age are left out of the trend and thus reaffirm the argument of those who defend the creation of a child benefit that has not been successful in Spain or Catalonia, while in many surrounding countries it has been found that it is a lever that serves to reduce the poor population at a vital stage of lifeIn fact, it is estimated that in the case of the Half of the creatures at risk, some 200,000, no social assistance is received in their home, partly due to the strict criteria for these benefits or directly due to bureaucratic difficulties. According to the data, in the last year the rate of poor children has increased by 1.7 points, while in those over 65 years of age, the other age group that has also become poorer, it has been 0.8%, half that of children. Among those aged 16 to 64, poverty has decreased by 1.1 points.

For social entities, the data show that it is necessary to reinforce the protection system for the most vulnerable groups, such as children and the elderly, because with the current system "a pocket of chronic and structural poverty is maintained that is very entrenched," the president of the Board points out in a statement. , in relation to the minimum vital income and the guaranteed income of citizenship, in addition to protecting a system that ensures the automatic update of the IRSC, the index that marks the threshold to receive aid and that for more than a decade was frozen.

The NGO Save the Children also stresses that today having children is a "risk factor", as shown by the fact that households with children have a poverty rate of 28.5% compared to 18.8% of those without children. To combat this situation, the entity is committed to implementing a universal benefit for child-rearing, expanding the stock of social housing and guaranteeing access to daycare centers in the 0-3 age group. Along the same lines, Unicef-Catalunya warns that the data show that, after three years of increases in the rate, child poverty "has not reached its ceiling" and, apart from insisting on strengthening social protection, it also warns that at the earliest ages material deprivation is related to "more mental health problems", while families.

No holidays, no meat or fish

The number of households living on benefits and pensions has also decreased slightly. If in 2023 62.2% received a transfer of these benefits, a year later it was 60%, six out of ten. Of these, 57% are due to old-age pensions after a lifetime of work and survival and they manage to reduce the poverty rate of the beneficiaries by 16 points. Below are the families that are entitled to unemployment benefit (29%) and a further 33% that meet the criteria for other subsidies.

How is poverty noticeable? According to Idescat, 6% of families cannot afford to eat meat or fish at least twice a week, the highest percentage in the series that started in 2019. The holiday factor is also worsening: 30.4% -three out of 10 families- cannot pay for a week staying away from home, and there are those who cannot afford an unforeseen expense of more than 800 euros, which in these six years of analysis has gone from being 26% to 35% of households.