AIReF published the study on minimum income programs in Spain in 2019, requested to the institution in March 2018 following the repeated recommendations of the European Council on the need to strengthen the last network of economic benefits to achieve greater progress in reducing poverty, and after the Parliament took into consideration the Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) to establish a minimum income benefit at the proposal of CCOO. and UGT.
In the Study, AIReF estimates that the minimum income ILP would improve income distribution by 4% and reduce extreme poverty by 28%, with a fiscal cost of between 7,200 and 9,800 million euros. It concludes that in Spain there is a fractioned minimum income system with territorial disparities, since the minimum incomes of the Autonomous Regions are the only non-categorical instrument that offers protection against the general risk of poverty. In addition, there are low levels of efficiency in terms of redistribution, which also implies little effectiveness in reducing poverty rates. AIReF also notes that this system implies a disincentive to participation in the labor market, which is mitigated in those cases that make it possible to combine benefit and employment.
