The Covid-19 pandemic has caused many families to lose their purchasing power and become considered vulnerable. No one doubts that they need help aimed at protecting children as well.
Just a few days ago, the Minister of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda, Ione Belarra, announced her intention to extend maternity and paternity leave to six months starting in 2022 and the creation of a universal childbearing benefit.
But it seems that the measures to support families could go further: yesterday he spoke of establishing an aid of one hundred euros per month per dependent child to all families living below the poverty line.
Universal child support
In a meeting with the media, during the summer courses of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Belarra recalled that the Ministry of Social Rights has long been proposing a benefit for dependent children that is “universal and reaches all families” .
In addition, he added his commitment to allocate one hundred euros per month for each dependent child for all families living below the poverty line and that would be complemented with the tax incentives that already exist for those families that do make the declaration of rent .
The minister also supports the expansion of “a network of public infant schools” and the ‘Corresponsables’ program promoted by Equality, “so that the State takes joint responsibility for the care of children under 14 when they are not in school .”
This idea is also on the government’s agenda, which speaks of “expanding income coverage to families with children up to 18 years of age who are already receiving the minimum vital income (IMV) and also for those who do not receive the IMV and their income is higher than the limits established in the IMV, but they are still below the poverty line ”.
It is one of the proposals collected in the framework presentation of the 40th federal congress of the PSOE, which takes place this weekend:
“This complement to the IMV will substantially improve the current protection of the child benefit in charge of the Social Security. In this way it is possible to extend the child support to all families, in this case as a non-contributory benefit, reaching those who do not have this aid as a personal income tax deduction, which reaches the rest of middle and high income families ”.
They have not yet communicated when these social protection measures would begin to be effective , which could help alleviate the devastating effects of the family economy caused by the pandemic, as pointed out by Ione Belarra, who has given Ireland as an example, where the The child poverty rate has decreased after the implementation of a childcare benefit such as the one proposed by your Ministry.
Via | RTVE
Photos | iStock
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