In just a few months, the pandemic has left behind a trail of terrible news, both in human and health terms as well as in economic and social terms: a sad story of which more than a coda remains.
However, and although in a very modest way, the COVID crisis has also provided patches for optimism: a vital minimum income at the state level, a desire of many for years - even decades - ignored by successive governments and that the Coalition Executive has had to activate by forced marches.
The news came on June 10, with the state of alarm still active and even at the dawn of discontent, when Congress carried forward without any vote against —those who spoke of “paguita” renounced the political cost of voting against— the minimum vital income (IMV): a lifeline of between 462 and 1,015 euros per month, depending on the size of the household, with which it was sought to rescue those who are experiencing the worst.
It was not only a wish of its beneficiaries: it was also a long-standing claim from Brussels, which saw the regional programs insufficient.
Three months later, the IMV is a story of lights and some - obvious - shadows.
Some 86,000 households (or some 260,000 people; more than half of them minors) have already received it, according to the Ministry of Social Security, and few doubt that it has come to stay as a key vault in the architecture of social protection for The most disadvantaged.
However, there are still many families who, despite having the right to it, still do not receive what they are entitled to.
1. The starting point: an unequal society
Spain reached the pandemic substantially worse than the eurozone average on two key indicators of development and cohesion: relative poverty and inequality.
According to data from the Foessa Foundation - linked to Cáritas - exclusion (both in its severe variant and in its moderate variant) affected almost one in every five households in 2019.
The figure was slightly lower than that registered six years earlier, in the midst of the recession (25%), but still much higher than in 2007 (16%), when we were resting on our laurels.
Spain, in short, was still trying to completely suture the wound of the last crisis when the blow of the virus hit: GDP
per capita
had already returned to pre-crisis levels, but both poverty and inequality were still higher.
The gaps between communities were (are) also enormous: in Ceuta, 4 out of 10 people are at risk of poverty, compared to less than one in 10 in Navarra or the Basque Country.
The regional minimum incomes of the latter, the most developed, played an essential role in this dynamic.
2. This time it is different: the pandemic not only impoverishes, it also inequalizes
The same health crisis that has accelerated the approval of the IMV is blowing up the seams of Spanish society and, in general, of all Western societies.
Unlike other pandemics in the past - the Black Death of the 14th century or the flu of 1918 - which went down in the history books as redistributive periods, this time the dynamics of the coronavirus (confinement, telework only feasible in professions white collar ...) row in the opposite direction: they hit the poor much more than the rich.
The novelty of the large-scale temporary employment regulation files (ERTE) has made it possible to maintain incomes and employment, avoiding an abrupt increase in unemployment and containing the first blow for many.
But there are still curves ahead: Oxfam believes that the crisis will leave more than 700,000 new poor in Spain.
And the IMV will not be able to solve everything: only help those who are worse off to get out of trouble.
"Between the end of the strike and the IMV is obtained, there are light years, and that is a problem," outlines the economist José Moisés Martín Carretero.
In that meantime, he calculates, easily two million people.
"We have to rethink the protection model to prevent people from losing the right to a subsidy without a clear step to another," underlines Ana Arriba, professor at the University of Alcalá de Henares.
Both on that flank and on that of working poverty - those people who, despite working, do not earn enough to survive - the answers are still scarce.
3. The IMV: a common soil regardless of where you live
The newly created minimum vital income is framed within what experts call "last-minute systems": programs that have the ultimate goal of covering what is necessary so that those who have been left without income can survive until they achieve a new opportunity.
It establishes a common floor for all the autonomous regions, in such a way that any low-income household, wherever it may be, has a single income guarantee that can be supplemented (or not) by each autonomous government.
"The IMV still has a journey," explains Marcos Muro, former
number two
for Employment and Youth in the Basque Country and one of the best connoisseurs of the Basque income guarantee program, reports
Pedro Gorospe.
When Congress approved it, the Executive estimated 850,000 households that would benefit: 2.3 million people at a total cost of 3,000 million per year.
Three months later, only a third of the 900,000 family applications have been processed: hundreds of thousands of people are still trapped in the bureaucratic labyrinth.
This is the case of the Dominican Joaquín Sánchez: 20 years in Spain, two dependent children, 700 euros a month's rent.
Works part-time as a doorman in a building: 550 euros.
His wife cleaned houses and looked after children, but with the pandemic she has been left with nothing: zero euros.
It was the last straw that led them to ask for help, reports
Gorka R. Pérez.
Three months later her case is still under study.
“I've never been like this before.
Even by doing magic, I can't keep my receipts from accumulating ”.
Speed explains, in part, the difficult application of the IMV.
But for those who do not know if they can pay for food and supplies tomorrow, any argument remains lame.
In the face of the social emergency, there are several voices that bet to turn the process around: that the benefit is granted even before the documentation is delivered to avoid the delay in the collection in people who are in a critical situation.
For those who could not prove that they meet all the requirements, the aid would be withdrawn
afterwards
.
"The IMV is a positive measure, but the demonstration of some requirements could be limited to an affidavit and then verify them
, ex post,
" recommends Manuel Aguilar Hendrickson, professor at the University of Barcelona.
The ministry, meanwhile, has announced a first battery of changes to reach 150,000 more homes, figures that sound optimistic to most of the specialists consulted.
Even when the bureaucratic bottleneck caused by the urgency with which the IMV has been deployed and the flood of applications is fixed, part of the problem will still be there.
In other European countries, the percentage of people who do not receive the minimum income due to the complexity of the procedures is estimated at a third, according to the figures of the UNED professor Luis Ayala: “Things that may seem simple to us, such as opening a bank account , for many families they are not ”.
4. A European anomaly
Brussels had been putting its finger on the sore for years: "The regional minimum income regimes only reach 20% of their potential beneficiaries in [the whole] country, with great [regional] disparities," the European Commission said in May.
The IMV was an imperative for Spain to stop being a
rare bird
in a continent in which these mechanisms were already common currency: 15 Member States have a minimum income of 200 euros per month or more, with Denmark and the Netherlands as the most generous countries ( with 1,515 or 992 euros in the case of a person without children), according to Belgian sociologist Bea Cantillon.
But far from it all is done: the gap in social spending between Spain and the most guarantors is still large: as Lucía Martínez, from the Public University of Navarra underlines, “it would be a huge mistake to think that with this benefit everything is solved.
We have the same challenges ”.
And there are many.
"Most of the social spending goes to pensions: that covers very well those who have had stable links with the world of work, but not the rest," says Martínez.
They are precisely those who suffer the most in periods like this: people who enter and leave the labor market and when the lean cows arrive they go from being just above the threshold of relative poverty to being below.
And they also have two crises behind them in a decade.
One figure says it all: 1.1 million households have all their members unemployed.
"The minimum income is a very important instrument, yes, but only one more," slides Ana Revenga, former deputy chief economist of the World Bank.
With its entry into force, the IMV will release about 1,000 million of the slightly more than 1,500 that the autonomies allocated for that purpose, according to the numbers of Miguel Laparra, until recently vice president of the Navarrese Government.
"It is an ethical duty that this money is dedicated to active inclusion or to supplement the minimum income, not to other things," she emphasizes.
"It comes to fill a void," agrees Demetrio Casado, honorary president of Foessa, "but beware of the temptations to save in some autonomous communities."
Borja Barragué, researcher on inequality and guarantee of minimum income, puts his name and surname: “Being the richest community, Madrid already allocated a ridiculous amount to fight against poverty.
Where is that money going to go?
The truth is, I don't expect much from someone who had done practically nothing before ”.
5. Towards a universal basic income?
When the IMV was released, a handful of British media jumped into the pool with headlines about a supposed universal basic income.
Nothing could be further from the truth: the instrument focuses on those who are experiencing the worst, but it does not have enough financial muscle or a true vocation for universality.
A minimum income and a universal basic income therefore go down two different tracks: while the first sets a minimum income floor, the second ensures fixed money to citizens simply for being so.
The pandemic has raised both the number of advocates and the debate around basic income itself.
In the UK, a petition signed by more than 100,000 people has managed to get it all the way to Parliament - with modest success: Boris Johnson's government has already said no.
And in Brazil, a benefit for 60 million workers in the unregulated sector has raised the expectations of those who aspire to its universalization.
In Spain their champions have less impact.
"They are different things, yes, but they are not exclusive: filling gaps in social protection can lead us to think about systems that are less and less conditioned and, perhaps, universal", Ayala remarks.
“We have climbed a first step and it is possible that this horizon could be raised in the future.
Meanwhile, it has to be, at least, in the public debate ”.
In the case of the IMV and other similar minimum incomes, all the specialists consulted rule out any disincentive effect on work.
Both by its very nature and by its amount: very few give up, in short, to work to receive 400 euros a month.
These invectives, they say, today have much more ideology than hard data and serious analysis.
More doubts awaken its distant relative, the universal basic income: although the pilot projects with low amounts seem to disprove the preconceptions about their interaction with the labor market - in all directions: in Finland they found that this improves the health and well-being of the unemployed who received it, but it does not improve their employability—, there are still legions who believe that they will make a dent in the labor supply and will force higher wages, damaging the competitiveness of the countries that dare to take the step.
And yet, with a foreseeable future marked by inequality and massive automation —problems that, in not many years, will overshadow the incentive or disincentive to work to receive a monthly income from the State—, universal basic income continues to rise. in the list of possible alternatives.
"A primordial element of a radical alternative to both old socialism and neoliberalism and of a realistic utopia," write two of its most fervent defenders, Phillipe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderbroght, in the monumental
A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and an Economy. sensible
(Grano de sal, 2017).
The dream of free money will still have to wait, but its shadow on the horizon is getting longer and longer.
Conclusions
one
The IMV settles a historical anomaly at the European level: although some autonomies have been carrying out similar programs for decades, until now there was no single network at the state level.
two
Bureaucratic bottlenecks are marking the first months of the measure.
Increasing the muscle of the Administration in management is an imperative to avoid that those who are worst are still without coverage.
3
Doubts persist as to whether this aid will reach all the most vulnerable people.
And from the time the unemployment benefit runs out until you are eligible for the IMV there is a long stretch without coverage.
4
You cannot be complacent: it is an important advance, but a national minimum income only alleviates poverty in its most severe versions.
5
Just a first step.
Spanish social spending is still far from the European average and far from the most guaranteeing countries.
recommendations
1
Bring the IMV closer to the most vulnerable
Create specialized units in social services to provide information to the most vulnerable families.
Many know that there is help, but not the requirements to access it.
2
Reduce conditionality
"There should be some, but the experience of other countries tells us that highly conditioned minimum incomes end up being quite useless and generate many tensions," Aguilar Hendrickson remarks.
3
Reconfigure the aid and subsidies scheme
Applicable to unemployment, pensions, child support and minimum income.
It is a unique opportunity to rethink the entire protection model that should not be wasted, "eliminating all possible friction," Laparra claims.
4
Improve coordination between the State and autonomies
Both in the management of the benefit itself and in what to do with the funds that the communities spend on minimum income that are now partially released.
Prevent that money from being used for non-social purposes.
5
Build a single registry for all Administrations
Municipalities, autonomous communities and the State must share information.
“All the databases have to be combined.
It would be a great step to build a coherent strategy for the entire protection system, ”says Revenga.
The expert's opinion
Luis Ayala
The professor of Economics at the UNED and specialist in the welfare state believes that Spain has settled "an enormous historical anomaly" with the IMV
Sara de la Rica
For this expert on labor inequality and poverty, the challenge is that the passage through the minimum income is temporary for the majority of beneficiaries
Daniel Raventós
The president of the Basic Income Network and professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Barcelona explains the differences between universal basic income and IMV
Octavio Granado
The former Secretary of State for Social Security points out that no one helps legitimate recipients of social assistance to deal with bureaucracy
Whole series
Credits
Coordination and format: Guiomar del Ser and Brenda Valverde
Art and design direction: Fernando Hernández
Infographic: Yolanda Clemente
Layout: Nelly Natalí