Latin America and the Caribbean offer aid through COVID-19 but far from basic income

Latin America and the Caribbean should ensure that all their inhabitants have at least $5.5 a day during the coronavirus crisis, according to the temporary basic income plan proposed by the UN last Thursday, something for which this region does not seem to be prepared despite some bonuses and emergency aid.

Although it is difficult to implement this measure in one of the epicentres of the pandemic (182,867 deaths and 4.35 million cases) and it is the most unequal region in the world, some governments and institutions have implemented measures that seek to keep the most vulnerable population afloat during this situation.

In March, the Dominican Republic increased from US$ 29 to US$ 86 per month the subsidy it already gave to 2.3 million poor people, and private sector employees with a minimum wage (US$ 206 per month) receive 70% of that income, while their employer supplements their salary. In addition, informal workers receive US$ 86 per month, a measure that the Government extended and recommended to the Executive, which will take office on 16 August.

For its part, Peru twice granted $220 to thousands of poor families and a bonus of the same value to independent workers, but the aid ended in early July with the end of the confinement. In Brazil, since April, informal workers, the unemployed and the disadvantaged have been receiving 110 dollars, and the 50 million people who received the 36-dollar subsidy from the Bolsa Familia program, created by former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2003, are also being considered for 110 dollars.

Since May, Chile has been helping mainly informal workers and the over-70s with three monthly payments which, after an update in June, provide between US$ 104 and US$ 126 per person depending on the size of the family, benefiting 80% of the most vulnerable households. It also gives $634 to those who were paid between that figure and $1,900 and lost more than 30% of their income.

In Ecuador, where aid already existed for the elderly and the disabled, among others, since April there has been a "family protection bond" for small traders, farmers, fishermen and artisans, in principle for 400,000 families, a figure that doubled when the government integrated 550,000 more beneficiaries to receive the $120 for April and May.

In Argentina, which, due to the economic crisis it has been experiencing for two years, has been giving, among other things, monthly food stamps from 53 to 79 dollars to 1.5 million families, the government has increased this aid and created others due to the pandemic.

For example, monthly bonuses of 132 dollars for the unemployed and informal workers, a benefit for which 9 million people qualified and which, according to official figures, prevented between 2.7 and 4.6 million from falling into poverty.

Already in North America, since December 2018, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promoted aid of 50 dollars for the elderly, scholarships for poor students and apprentices of up to 110 dollars and support for farmers of 250 dollars, among others. But even though it is estimated that more than 10 million Mexicans will fall into poverty, which already affects more than 50 million, the government has so far only promised 3 million credits of about $1,000 to small entrepreneurs and workers.

In addition to previous programs for the poorest, such as Families in Action, Older Colombia and Youth in Action, the Government of Iván Duque created a grant of $47 for 3 million families, initially for three months and extended until June 2021. 

Also in this country, 60 congressmen filed an "Emergency Basic Income" project on July 20, to transform this subsidy into a renewable one of a monthly minimum wage (US$240) for three and a half months for two more months for 60% of the population.

In March, Uruguay's trade union centre, the PIT-CNT, also proposed a transitional basic income of one minimum monthly wage (US$760) for 310,000 vulnerable households, but the government dismissed the idea because of the country's economic situation.

Nicaragua, meanwhile, has opted for a balance between the economy and health, without quarantines or border closures, and maintains a subsidy for users of urban mass transit and households that consume less than 150 kilowatts per month, which will not prevent poverty from rising from 28.2 percent in 2019 to between 32.2 percent and 36.9 percent in 2020 due to the pandemic, according to the non-governmental Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (Funides).

In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro's government has been handing out vouchers in the form of money and food to vulnerable families for the past three years, although they barely amount to US$2 a month and are linked to the country's identity card, which the opposition claims is a parallel census to blackmail the population.

In Bolivia, the interim government proposed a health bonus of US$72 a month, while the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), with a parliamentary majority, wants a bonus against hunger of US$145 a month, ideas still being studied in the midst of the political struggle between the government and the opposition.

As in the rest of the region, the UN proposal has not generated any debate or response in Panama, which had already approved a bonus for suspended workers and registered hawkers and artists for $80 a month from April to June, a sum that rose to $100 in July, although the unions think it is insufficient and demand that it be $500, an average minimum wage.

In Guatemala, the government also established aid during the first three months of the pandemic for specific sectors of the country, where 59% of the population lives in poverty, in addition to more than 700,000 new unemployed. The NGO Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales (Icefi) suggested a universal basic income in 2017, starting in 2019, and has reiterated the idea this year, but the Government has not analysed it. Finally, Paraguay, through the Tekoporã assistance program, grants periodic sums or food stamps to low-income families.