After twelve years in the freezer and faced with the highest inflation in four decades, the Government has agreed with employers and unions an increase in 8% of Sufficiency Income Indicator of Catalonia (IRSC) which is currently 569.12 euros per month and which will become 614.65 in 2023. As EL PERIÓDICO has learned, the Generalitat will revalue this indicator, which sets the amount of social benefits offered by the Generalitat -from the dining room scholarships to aid for social housing- and determines who can (and who can’t) receive them. Said increase mainly affects the Guaranteed Citizenship Income (RGC) and, in total, will imply an increase of 144 million euros in public spending. In addition, an agreement has been reached to guarantee that the new public accounts would invest 680 million euros in industry and improvements in vocational training.
The increase in social benefits and the guarantee of investment in industry are part of a broader package of measures agreed between the Government, Promotion of Work, pimec, CCOO Y UGT in the so-called ‘consell de diàleg social’ and with an eye on the budgets of the Generalitat by 2023. Sources consulted by this newspaper explain that the ‘president’ Pere Aragones He wanted to incorporate the main trade union and business organizations of Catalonia in the preparation of the Catalan accounts, and after six meetings he has been able to close a principle of agreement that will foreseeably be ratified on Monday. All this while the negotiation to approve the accounts with the PSC, together and the ‘commons‘, despite the reluctance of the post-convergents to close a budget pact and with the pressure of the socialists and the purples to reach an agreement before the Consell Executiu endorses the figures.
social agreement
Faced with this panorama, Aragonès seeks to display support that promotes an agreement with his minority Government, endowing himself with legitimacy from the actors in the socioeconomic field, the same one that asked him not to extend the budgets. The republican leader thus revives the Catalan social dialogue, to which he has resorted after the social agents recriminated little attention since the price crisis began. The publication by the Government of this agreement with employers and unions accelerates the pace of negotiation, which now falls entirely on the groups in Parliament, and the public accounts project is on its way to approval.
The Sufficiency Income Indicator is updated for the first time since 2010, expanding the number of families that will be able to access social assistance and its amount
The increase in the amount of social benefits was a claim that unions and social entities had been demanding for years. Especially after the successive increases that the central government had been applying in recent years, to the point that its indicator -the IPREM– It currently exceeds the IRSC, something that will be reversed with the Catalan accounts of 2023. And precisely this second was created by the Generalitat to recognize the higher cost of living in Catalonia compared to the average for the whole of Spain. The 8% increase is a minimum agreement, since the social entities demanded an increase of between 12 and 15%. And some social movements demanded to reach 30%.
One of the main benefits benefited by the increase in the IRSC is the ‘Guaranteed Income of Citizenship’ (RGC), which will go from 644 euros to 695.5 euros per month, in the case of a single recipient. In this sense, this newspaper has been able to confirm that the Government will also be asked to transfer the management of the minimum vital income (IMV) to multiply the efficiency of both social income. A request that has already been addressed in the bilateral commission and that the Generalitat will now put back on the table with the support of employers and unions.
The businessmen have pressed especially hard to get two commitments from the Government. On the one hand, the guarantee that the new public accounts would invest 680 million euros in the industrial sector. For the social agents, it is essential that the Executive branch become co-responsible for the National Agreement for the Industryrecently signed and which aims to reverse the decline and reinvigorate the secondary sector that Catalonia has experienced in recent years.
Another point that the employers have located and that Pimec had been championing for a long time is speeding up the implementation of the one-stop shop for business permits. Here Aragonès is committed to providing more budget to the technical departments to speed up procedures and prevent investments from being lost due to the delay in permits that depend on the environment, firefighters or urban planning, among others.
What aid depends on the IRSC?
Almost all the social assistance granted by the Government is calculated through the IRSC. The most popular is Guaranteed Income, although there are many more. For example, a couple with two or three children who live in the Barcelona metropolitan area cannot earn more than 29,000 euros a year to access the waiting list for social emergency flats. For people who live alone the threshold is 21,000 euros per year. If they access a social rentthe price they will pay It is also marked according to the IRSC.
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The IRSC also stipulates who are the vulnerable families to whom the Power companies can’t cut off your power.. For people who live alone, the income limit is calculated by multiplying the IRSC by two, while in the case of families with more members it is multiplied by 2.5 and in people with disabilities by 3. It also determines access to dining room scholarships, aid to pay rent or access to the food deliveries derived by social services.
The IRSC remained in the freezer since the last government of José Montilla, in 2010, although the law says that this figure must be reviewed every year in the budget of the Generalitat. Neither the governments of Artur Mas, nor Carles Puigdemont, nor Quim Torra complied with this obligation. Meanwhile, families were in real trouble. Those who receive aid do not make ends meet and thousands of households cannot access it despite being below the poverty line. The IRSC is currently in 569.12 euros per month per person or 7,967.73 per year and after its revaluation it will pass to €614.6 per month or 8,605.1 euros per year.