- The State has announced that it will guarantee Spanish households a minimum income of 10,070 euros per year
On Friday the Government approved a national minimum wage, which will guarantee an income of between 461 and 1,015 euros to 850,000 households, a measure intended to combat extreme poverty across the country.
With an annual cost of 3,000 million euros, the announcement was made by Pablo Iglesias, which he defines as the greatest advance in social rights since the dependency law.
He said that it will reach 2.3 million people, a third of them minors, that it can be requested from 15 June and that all requests submitted up to 15 September will be charged retrospectively from 1 June.
The Government’s announcement closed a week of high political tension, day after day saw accusations crossing between the parties.
The minimum guaranteed income threshold will be 461 euros per month for an adult living alone. When living in a shared property it will increase by 139 euros per month for each person, up to a maximum of 1,015 euros per month. In addition, single-parent families will receive a supplement of 100 euros per month.
Government Vice President, Pablo Iglesias, said that anyone who is between 23 and 65 years old, or from 18 if the applicant has dependent minors. Migrants are also eligible for the benefit providing that they have at least one year of legal residence in Spain.
Access to aid will depend on the income level and wealth of the person making the request.
The government plan for a guaranteed minimum was first raised in December 2019, when the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos formed a coalition government after the inconclusive results of the earlier November general election. As part of the arrangement the parties agreed to create “a general mechanism to guarantee earnings for families with no or low income.”
In recent weeks the coronavirus crisis accelerated the plan and in April, the government released the first details of the minimum income scheme, which will cost the government €3 billion a year.
Drafts of the welfare program have been seen by several ministries, regional governments, social organisations and even associations that work with potential recipients. These texts are not final, meaning some of the details may change when the royal decree is published in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
The Social Security Minister José Luis Escrivá has said on many occasions that the minimum income scheme must be compatible with paid work as a way of fighting against work poverty so anyone who is not employed must be registered as job seekers in public employment offices before they can apply for the grant.
