Key cabinet ministers in Spain’s government are pushing for a new universal child benefit in the 2025 budget. The benefit has the potential to reduce the country’s alarmingly high child poverty rate and center the human rights to social security and an adequate standard of living in state budget planning.
Last week, Spain’s Minister of Social Rights Pablo Bustinduy, backed by the labor minister and the children’s minister, set out plans to include a €200 monthly grant per child (under 18) in the budget. The eligibility criteria are simple: all households with children would receive the grant if they file taxes as residents of Spain. High-earning households would be subject to a tax on the grant.
This new benefit could make a real difference. Official statistics show that 34.5 percent of children in Spain are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, the second highest rate in the European Union.
When the Ministry of Social Rights first publicized the plans last summer, questions were raised about whether a universal benefit would be more effective than a poverty-targeted one.
Spain recently introduced a monthly child aid supplement (CAPI) of between €57 and €115 to low-income families meeting qualifying criteria for Minimum Vital Income (IMV). However, more than half the people eligible for IMV have not accessed it and the CAPI also suffers from non-take-up. The government knows and has told us that many who should benefit from targeted social security payments in practice do not.
There is clear evidence for the positive impact of universal child benefits, in Spain and elsewhere.
A simulation by academic specialists shows that a universal benefit of this kind in Spain could not only reduce child poverty generally, but also almost halve the current rate of extreme child poverty from 14 to 8 percent. Spain’s child poverty commissioner has quantified the yearly cost of chronic, persistent child poverty at €63.1 billion. By contrast, the projected annual cost of a universal child benefit is €19 billion.
The child benefit could still be accompanied by other universal programs or targeted support such as the CAPI or urgent assistance such as spending cards for households that cannot pay for adequate food.
The costs of inaction on poverty are clear. Spain’s government should take the opportunity to act decisively by putting universality and the rights of children in its next budget.
