Poverty is falling in Catalonia, but it is growing among children
Six out of 10 Catalan households live on social benefits or retirement pensions
![Unicef proposes aid per child to reduce child poverty](https://static1.ara.cat/clip/817ef638-1788-42f6-9db8-68ce04671556_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg)
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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 poverty rate for the entire population has been reduced in this last year by 0.4 points, a very slight decrease, but which allows it to be placed in the lower range. 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 household, 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.
The number of households living on benefits and pensions has also decreased slightly. If in 2023 60.2% 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.