Annabella quiroga
10/26/2020 6:01 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 10/26/2020 6:01 AM
One month after having completed the payment of the third batch
of the Emergency Family Income (IFE),
the Government continues to circle to define whether or not there will be an IFE 4. With the deterioration of the economic situation and the increase in uncertainty unleashed by the jump in the blue dollar, which last Friday reached $ 195, the chances of
a fourth and final payment
of the $ 10,000
bonus are
back on the table.
The Government has been handling two alternatives to define the continuity of this aid designed for quarantine.
The first is for ANSeS to re-pay a batch of IFE that includes the
9 million beneficiaries
who had access to the three previous payments.
The second option is to cut the program and modify it so that
it focuses only on young people between 18 and 24 years old
and that at the same time it is combined with a labor consideration, in line with the benefits of Argentina Trabaja.
In recent weeks, the idea of a targeted program was gaining traction.
But with the deterioration of economic variables and the negative effect of the rise in the blue, the chances of making "a last fiscal effort" to improve the social climate for the end of the year are reactivated.
At Casa Rosada they have already begun to design the plan to promote a peaceful end of the year.
To alleviate the escalation of poverty they plan to go out and distribute a million and a half Christmas boxes.
This will require an investment of $ 500 million.
But the officials who take the pulse of the street know that this is not enough and less in a climate of tension such as that generated by the stampede of parallel dollars.
In order to
gain social peace,
a new phase of the bonus that begins to be paid at the end of November is a resource to take into account.
If it is massive,
IFE 4 will demand $ 90,000 million.
This weekend, the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, declared that he is evaluating "making a more focused aid. In case it cannot be done, there will be IFE 4".
The argument is that with the relaxation of the quarantine "part of the 9 million beneficiaries are already able to work".
Until now, the IFE has reached the beneficiaries of the Universal Child Allowance (AUH), the unemployed, domestic workers and monotributistas of categories A and B.
Although mobility was reactivated,
the same is not the case with employment
.
With the quarantine, many businesses and informal enterprises closed and with the increase in uncertainty, the prospects that the trades will be reactivated are lowered.
In the City of Buenos Aires alone, 40% of domestic workers lost their jobs.
And according to the union's data, throughout the country more than 370,000 private house workers were laid off or suspended.
Only in September, the last month the bond was paid,
the basic basket increased 3.8%
.
And in October the consulting firms are already detecting a rise in the price of food, which could take inflation for the month above 3%.
"Let's think that
the IFE is perhaps one more month and
that's it
.
What we are looking for is to try to have more specific policies with segments of society that are going to have a hard time recovering," Cafiero said.
"If we don't come up with more focused tools, the intention is to do an IFE 4. I don't rule out either of the two things."
Last week, the Peronist mayors of the suburbs renewed the clamor operation to have a fourth IFE.
"We believe that by the end of the year this measure
should be maintained and reinforced,
" they stressed at a meeting in Berazategui.
In the same vein, a good part of the governors and social movements that every week take to the streets to demand an IFE 4 demonstrated.
What the Government made clear, and that is how it is in the Budget being debated in Congress, is that in 2021 there will no longer be IFE.
Therefore, if there is a new batch of the bonus, it
will be the last.
AQ
Look also
The blue dollar on its way to $ 200 paralyzes activity and leaves the economy without prices
The hard data of the economic recession that the dollar crisis cannot cover
