The Government has announced that it will approve the ‘Minimum Life Income’ next Tuesday at the last Council of Ministers in May.
This minimum income will suppose a monthly payment of 462 euros that the most vulnerable households in the State will receive. The messure will benefit around one million households. Family units may collect an income up to a maximum of 1,015 euros per month and person.
This initiative has been rejected among the right wing opposition, considering it a privilege, or as they have decided to call it, a sort of ”pay-off”.
The extreme right party, Vox, claims that the application of minimum wage income will lead people to stop working. They prefer to bet on meritocracy to achieve higher wages, ignoring all the poverty indicators that warn us about the alarming situation suffered by a large majority of the population in Spain. Of course, the percentage has increased by the post-COVID19 economic crisis.
It is undeniable that poverty is embodied by women. The latest report prepared by the EAPN (European Anti Poverty Network or European Network to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion) affirms that gender discrimination governs the labor market and this is the cause that most influences the increased poverty of women. In Spain there are 5.27 million women risking living under poverty.
Poverty increases when we talk about older women (main beneficiaries of widow’s pensions, the lowest of them all) and single mothers with dependent children. The poverty rate in single-parent families has always been higher than in other families. In Spain, 83% of these households are headed by a woman
FEMEN celebrates that Spain is taking this measure that will help women gain economic independence. We cannot forget that this independence is essential when we want to eradicate gender based violence, since many women are not able to leave their homes due to a non stable economical situation.
The Minimum Living Income is a right not a privilege.
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