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The first balance on how the national Minimum Subsistence Income was implemented is shown on the different maps and graphs referring to the amount of Beneficiaries of the Minimum Subsistence Income and the applications processed from the start of the programme until March 2021. Two main conclusions may be drawn: beneficiaries are concentrated in the areas where poverty levels were highest and where the economic sectors were most affected by the pandemic; and the amount of beneficiaries barely reached a third of the 850,000 households expected (around 700,000 people out of 2.3 million to be reached).
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In March 2021 (the date up to which the information on the graphs and maps is extended), the national administration made its own assessment: just over 870,000 applications had been processed out of the 1,150,000 received. 600,000 of these had been rejected, 210,000 had been approved and 62,000 were in the process of being corrected. In other words, approved applications accounted for only 25% of those processed. This Department also provided information on the profile of beneficiaries and identified two particularly vulnerable groups, i.e. women and minors. Households were made up of an average of 2.77 people and the average benefit for each household was 460 euros. Over 70% of beneficiaries were women, 43% of the people living in households benefiting from the national Minimum Subsistence Income were minors, and almost 70% of the households included at least one minor.
After assessing this measure as positive, all interim reports highlight major shortcomings and gaps, i.e. it is insufficient, it is not conditioned (by contrast, Regional Minimum Income policies are conditioned to beneficiaries taking part in labour or social inclusion measures), paperwork is too rigid (some potential beneficiaries were excluded due to some incompatibilities, for not meeting all requirements, for being ‘outside the system’ or for not knowing how to fill in forms) and there is a deficit in multilevel internal governance. This policy brings Spain closer to the social protection levels in northern European states, yet it is still far from being fully laid out. This explains why thousands of households with no income or in extremely difficult situations have continued to be assisted by charity and their members have queued up the so-called “hunger queues”. The latest reform to this policy, introduced by Royal Decree Law 3/2021, of 2 February, included the following text in the memorandum: “The period of implementation of this policy since it entered into force has made evident the need to improve some aspects of the regulation to enable covering the largest possible amount of people and to include situations that the current regulation does not take into account or does not operate in such a way as to allow some people to be correctly covered”. Maybe these changes together with some other adjustments might enable increasing the amount of beneficiaries gradually up to the 850,000 households initially envisaged. More attention should also be paid to ensuring that the regulation favours and reinforces social and labour insertion.
The most severe critics shall be made on the multilevel internal governance. The imbalances and the lack of coordination and cooperation between the three levels of administration involved (national government, regional administrations and local authorities) may lead to describing the management of this policy as a relative failure.
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How the national regulation of this Minimum Subsistence Income fits in with the Regional Minimum Income policies raised dysfunctions from the outset. Firstly, because the national regulation sets a difference between the Basque Country (Euskadi/País Vasco) and Navarre (Navarra) and the rest of regions due to the different tax collection system of these two regions as well as to the attribution of powers by an agreement on the National Social Security Institute. This was seen by the other regions as an unequal treatment. Secondly, although the regulation also envisaged the possibility of promoting an agreement with the rest of regions and/or local authorities, the fact is that the national Minimum Subsistence Income began developing in parallel to the Regional Minimum Income policies of all regions except for these two (which were set decades ago). This postponed sine die the agreements between administrations. The national government argued that it had better information than the regions to implement these policies (e.g. data on personal income and Social Security), but did not consider the lack of employees of the national administration to deal with deploying this mechanism. Thirdly, it led to confusion amongst regional authorities, beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries. Finally, it filled social service departments in local councils that were already understaffed. This last aspect, which has perhaps received less attention than it should, is essential and explains to a large extent the failure in implementing a policy to all citizens that are subject to benefit from it. This is also stated by social services from municipal level as well as by regional Ombudsmen.
Overall, the lack of coordination and cooperation between the different levels of administration on shared powers led to the relative failure of a very good initiative. This situation may improve once the planned agreements between the national administration and the regions are concluded and the social services of the regional governments are provided with resources.
