Almost a decade later, the Government rescues rental aid. However, the Executive of Pedro Sánchez must limit the scope of the young bond to reduce its impact on public accounts. The Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, affirmed this Wednesday that the aid will reach between 40,000 and 50,000 citizens. That number is far from the almost 600,000 young people up to 35 years of age with low incomes who live for rent in Spain, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
At the head of the Ministry of Housing, Carme Chacón launched in 2009 the popular basic income for emancipation. The aid, of 210 euros per month, was more than welcome at a time of maximum economic and residential emergency. In the first year of operation alone, it was received by more than 167,000 young people. And in the second year, it already had almost 320,000 recipients despite being much more restricted by age (between 22 and 30 years) and income (22,000 euros). At the height of austerity, the Government of Mariano Rajoy decided to strike her down.
In an interview with Zero Wave, Sánchez explained that his ministry will have 200 million euros for the young bond, which will allow reaching between 40,000 and 50,000 young people. That amount suggests, from the outset, that the calls will contain more access requirements than are known so far. At the moment, it has hardly transpired that this aid is intended for citizens between 18 and 35 years of age, with incomes of up to 23,725.8 euros (three times the IPREM, a public indicator of income with multiple effects). Sources of the Ministry, in addition, remember that it will also depend on the agreements that they end up making with the autonomous communities.
The Government, therefore, has limited a huge universe of population. Almost five million young people between 18 and 35 years of age earned less than twice the minimum interprofessional wage in 2019 (then it was equivalent to 25,200 euros). The INE’s Survey of Living Conditions allows us to refine something else, despite its limitations. According to the economist of the University of Alcalá de Henares Olga Cantó, there are 1.74 million young people up to 35 years of age who support a household in Spain – this data allows us to eliminate duplications within the same home and fits with the results of the Survey Household Continuum. Of these, 1.28 million have gross personal income lower than that required by the Government to access aid. And 586,590 pay rent. If the Government ends up taking into account family income, it turns out that there are 334,944 young households.
Raise the emancipation rate
Therefore, the Government will have to restrict criteria or focus aid more if it does not want to be overwhelmed by demands. In addition, the Government’s idea is also to lower the age of emancipation, now more than 29 years, to bring it closer to the average of the European Union, which is 26.4 years, according to Eurostat. “For young people, who until now have had it impossible to develop their life project, with the measures that are being activated we are going to greatly change their expectation of accessing a home,” said the minister in the interview.
According to the Spanish Youth Council (CJE), now only 15.8% of young people between 16 and 29 years old manage to become emancipated. The proportion is higher among those between 30 and 35 years old, although it does not reach 70%. The pandemic also pushed it back due to the stoppage caused by the confinements, the decrease in income due to the ERTE and, above all, the uncertainty with which the population faced the years to come. For this reason, the CJE called the bond for “patch.” “We understand that it is necessary to prioritize other types of policies, such as the creation of the public housing stock,” the vice president of the entity, Adrià Junyent, assured Efe.
The Minister of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 and Secretary General of Podemos, Ione Belarra, was skeptical of the measure, considering that the amount of this aid could be transferred to the price of rents directly. “I will wait to know the details of the measure, because I do not have the details. You have to be careful, because something similar was done in 2007, and the rent was raised for the population as a whole, not just for young people, ”he warned. However, he considered that the bond Yes, it can contribute to youth emancipation if it is accompanied by other measures that attack real estate speculation, which, in its opinion, does contribute to the rest of the package of measures.