Annabella quiroga
03/23/2021 12:53 PM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 03/23/2021 12:53 PM
With the second wave of Covid advancing through the region and the prospect of hardening the quarantine again, the Government is looking for tools to contain the effects of possible restrictions on the economy.
For now, it is ruled out that
the two star measures of the
2020
quarantine
are replaced
: the Emergency Family Income (IFE) and the Work and Production Assistance program (ATP).
Through the IFE, the State paid 9 million people three bonds of
$ 10,000
each.
They targeted the beneficiaries of social plans, monotributistas of the lowest categories, domestic and informal workers and the unemployed.
With the ATP, the State took care of
up to 50% of the salaries
of more than 2.5 million private workers during the most rigid months of the pandemic.
These two measures, along with other programs such as the Alimentar Card, were part of last year's "Covid spending" that came to represent 3.5% of GDP and brought the primary deficit to 6.5%.
This year the Government, in the middle of negotiations with the IMF,
aims to bring the deficit to 4.5% of the product
.
In the middle of the electoral campaign, the need to make an adjustment in spending converges with the political urgency of giving air to purchasing power so that rising consumption improves the chances of the ruling party.
From the official offices they say that the 2021 Budget, built under the illusion that the pandemic was in retreat and that the massive arrival of vaccines was a fact,
does not foresee a new Covid expense.
However, they detail that the Budget contains items that may be expanded as necessary to contain the effects on the economy of the new restrictions to which the second wave is dragging us.
Specifically, these tools are the Empower Work plan, the REPRO and the Alimentar Card.
More tools
"We have
reinforced the allocations
for the vaccination plan, for Food Card and Empower Work. Covid spending last year was more than 3.5% of GDP in primary terms. We anticipate that this year it will be lower, even having said this in the prudence that uncertainty demands of us ", assured a senior official of the economic team.
Empower Work reaches 800,000 people who perform community tasks and receive $ 10,300 per month, half of a minimum salary.
The Alimentar Card is received by the 1.5 million families that charge the Universal Child Allowance (AUH) with children under six years of age.
It is a monthly amount that ranges from
$ 6,000 to $ 9,000
depending on the number of children under that age.
The Productive Recovery program (REPRO) supposes a state contribution to salaries, but with amounts lower than those of the ATP.
In last month's REPRO, contributions of between
$ 9,000 and $ 18,000
were paid
to 320,000 workers.
The numbers show that in the first two months of this year, REPRO was reinforced with $ 10 billion, with $ 11 billion on Empower Work and with $ 18 billion on Food Cards.
These items are far from the amounts that were handled with the IFE, which had a monthly cost of $ 40,000 million and the $ 20,000 million that the ATP demanded per month.
From the base of these reinforced items in the Government they assess that if the pandemic requires it, they
could further increase the funds for these programs
and use them as a basis to reach the sectors that would be hit by new restrictions with the arrival of the second wave.
In this line, the Minister of Social Development, Daniel Arroyo, spoke yesterday.
“
The return of the IFE and the ATP is not in the budget
.
If there is an outbreak, if the health situation is complicated, we are going to take exceptional measures that we are going to evaluate at the moment, but
we are going to do it,
"he said in statements to TN.
AQ
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