The confrontation between Nadia Calviño and Yolanda Díaz over the reform of unemployment benefits, a benefit to which 716,000 people in Spain are entitled, is escalating. The Second Vice Presidency has today revealed the content of its proposal and there are aspects in it that the First Vice Presidency rejects. The same thing happens in the opposite direction. The Ministry of Economic Affairs has made proposals to which Labor has put its foot on the wall.
The core of the clash between both vice presidents and their teams is over the amount of the subsidy. Two opposing positions. In the latest Work document, confirmed by the Ministry today, an increase in the subsidy is proposed from the current 480 euros to 660 euros (110% of the IPREM) during the first six months of collection. The amount would remain at 540 euros during the following semester and at 480 euros for the remaining 18 months, up to the 30 months for which an unemployed person has the right to collect it. The average, during said 30 months, would be 528 euros per month. These figures are calculated with the current IPREM, which is 600 euros. In 2024, Yolanda Díaz’s department will propose a new increase.
This proposal is rejected by Economía due to its cost. In a scenario of recovery of fiscal rules and containment of spending, Nadia Calviño’s department does not see it appropriate to increase unemployment benefits globally. His latest proposal, as revealed today by Trabajo, is the following: the beneficiary would collect 600 euros during the first quarter, during the second and third he would receive 480 euros and in the fourth he would collect 300 euros. That is, it would be decreasing and would be eliminated after 12 months. The average would be 442.5 euros per month. The Second Vice Presidency calls this position “cutting” and refuses to accept it.
There are more discrepancies between Economy and Work. For example, Yolanda Díaz’s team points out that Economía proposed raising the age to receive this subsidy from 52 to 60 years. The Díaz Ministry points out that there is no possibility of this happening and even proposes lowering it to 45 years.
Economía has also proposed that the Minimum Living Income (IMV) come into operation for certain cases of unemployed people who collect unemployment benefits. Labor rejects it and does not agree that people have to be transferred immediately to the IMV, because it does not operate in the field of labor, but in that of social assistance, sources from the Second Vice Presidency point out.
In the conversations between both ministries, some reforms have also been addressed, such as the elimination of bureaucratic procedures, the elimination of the waiting month to collect the subsidy, the expansion of the benefit for temporary agricultural workers or the compatibility of collecting the same with a job. temporary for 45 days. On these issues the positions are closer.
The Ministry of Labor has also reported today that 80% of people do not exhaust the unemployment benefit and that 56% of the beneficiaries leave it because they find a job.
