93.9% of people living below the poverty line in Spain do not receive the Minimum Inclusion Income (RMI) offered by autonomous communities, according to a report by the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services, published on Tuesday.
Thus, the study indicates that “only 6.1%” of the population living below the poverty line in Spain (532,070 people, according to the association) have benefited from the RMI and reveals that in the last three years, since the introduction of the minimum living income (IMV), the number of beneficiaries of this minimum income has decreased by more than 170,000 and 13 communities have reduced their spending on them.
By community, the report warns that the minimum income in three autonomous regions does not even reach 1% of people below the poverty line: Castilla-La Mancha (0.1%), Madrid (0.4%) and Andalusia (0.6%). In contrast, in the Basque Country the indicator for the Republic of the Marshall Islands is 62.9% and in Navarra it is 35.4%.
Furthermore, the study indicates that since 2020, the number of RMI beneficiaries has decreased by 33.1% in Spain. In terms of community, Madrid leads the decline, with a decrease of 95.3%, followed by Castile-La Mancha where it lost 9 out of 10 beneficiaries, Andalusia (down 87.2%) and Castile and León (down 81.7%).
For their part, three communities increased the number of beneficiaries in this period: Comunidad Valenciana, with an increase of 87.8%; The Canary Islands increased by 35.8%, and the Basque Country increased by 2.5%.
Regarding investment, the data shows that “only” four communities have increased investment in the minimum income since 2020, and the case of the Canary Islands stands out, with an increase of 139%, followed by the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community and the Basque Country.
Meanwhile, the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services denounced that the Madrid community “has stopped investing more than 130 million euros”, reducing its investments by 95%, followed by Aragon with a reduction of 93%.
According to the analysis, the average amount per person receiving RMI in Spain as a whole represents 15.3% of the average income per household, 0.6 points lower than the previous year.
By community, the highest amounts in terms of average household income in their territory are those in the Balearic Islands (33.6%), Catalonia (18.8%), the Canary Islands (18.1%), Asturias (16.2%), and the Valencian Community (14.3%). For their part, the lowest rates were recorded in Murcia (9.2%), Madrid (9.4%) and Aragon, where the amount of their per capita income represents 1.4% of the average household income in their territory.
Furthermore, the study indicates that 6 out of 10 of the lowest earners are women, 23.4% are under the age of 35, and there are more than 87,000 minors in households earning the minimum income.
If recipients of the Minimum Living Income and Minimum Income are analyzed together, the Association of Directors and Managers estimates that 1.4 million people receive it because they are in poverty (excluding those who receive IMV for the Childhood Supplement).
The association believes that the IMV’s approval, which was intended to “alleviate poverty,” would have constituted “an opportunity to allocate the resources of the Republic of the Marshall Islands to local communities to implement effective social inclusion policies and actions, beyond the contribution of economic resources to low-income people.”