The Canary Islands is the third autonomous community that has most increased the resources it allocates to finance the Minimum Integration Income (RMI) since the Minimum Basic Income (IMV) was implemented in 2019, by 39.7%. The increase means that there are 38.5% more beneficiaries.
According to the latest available data, the Canary Islands allocated 51.04 million euros to the Minimum Basic Income last year, compared to 42.82 million in 2020 and 36.53 million in 2019.
Few communities have done so. Since the central government implemented the IMV, a mechanism that ensures a certain level of income for all households in vulnerable situations, many communities are reducing the funds for the RMI, the autonomous mechanism for protecting people at risk of social exclusion, which, unlike the IMV, has a specific expiration date.
This is confirmed by the State Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services, which believes that "many communities have dismantled or are dismantling their system of protection for people and families in situations of social exclusion" through the RMI after the implementation of the IMV.
Regions that are reducing funds
An analysis carried out by this association reveals that Castilla-La Mancha, Aragon, Extremadura, Madrid, and Castilla y León reduced their budgets for this purpose by around 50% or more, and that, although some allocated this "saving" to social inclusion programs or other social policies, such as the latter two, for others it "simply meant a reduction in their social spending, in a year as marked by the health and social crisis as 2021 was."
In the country as a whole, the number of RMI beneficiaries decreased by 150,000 people in 2021 compared to 2020, and only 7.1% of the population living below the poverty line in Spain (645,317 people) benefit from these aids.
By community, the report indicates that Castilla-La Mancha registers the largest percentage decrease in its already "meager" spending on Minimum Integration Incomes, with a reduction of more than two-thirds of it (66.7%).
The Directors and Managers of Social Services point out that in that community and also in Madrid, Castilla y León, Aragon, and Extremadura, the RMIs "are being replaced by the IMV."
In the Canary Islands, Valencian Community, and Catalonia, the largest increases
A situation that "contrasts," they add, with that of communities such as Valencia, Catalonia, and the Canary Islands, "where they have been reinforced as a complement to the IMV," with budget increases that in the case of the first two exceed 60%.
This "situation of regression, in some cases, and reinforcement in others," they affirm, is also evident in the evolution of the number of recipients, where the same communities that have reduced their spending, reduce "significantly" the number of beneficiaries, by up to 73% in Castilla-La Mancha, in contrast to the 121% increase in the Valencian Community.
Navarra and the Basque Country continue to stand out with high percentages of beneficiaries compared to their population below the poverty line, with 75.8% and 55.8%, respectively, while in Castilla-La Mancha "the extinction of these RMIs is confirmed," according to the association. In the Canary Islands, the Minimum Income only reaches 4.3% of citizens who are below the poverty line.
The average amount per recipient of the RMIs in Spain as a whole represents 15.9% of the average income per household in the country as a whole, a figure that for the Directors and Managers of Social Services is "extremely low" and that has been reduced by more than one point since 2019, from 17.1% to 15.9%.
Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community, and Asturias are the communities that are above the average, while in Murcia, Madrid, and Aragon, the percentage that the average amount of the RMIs represents does not reach 10% of the average income per household in those regions.
After verifying this situation, the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services wanted to emphasize that "poverty is not the same as social exclusion" and that "the IMV tries to alleviate situations of poverty, although its amount is clearly insufficient," while "the purpose of the Minimum Integration Incomes is to facilitate social inclusion, so they should be oriented to support people and families with financial aid and professional support."
That is why they demand that the communities "that, as some of them have already done, allocate the 'savings' that the implementation of the IMV has meant to reinforce their social inclusion programs that, among other causes, may be produced by prolonged situations of poverty."
