The Federation of Associations of Single Mothers (FAMS) has warned that 81% of single-parent families do not request the social voucher for discounts on the electricity bill due to a lack of information. For this reason, the Isadora Duncan Foundation for Single Parent Families has launched an informational campaign.
According to the FAMS in a statement, the social bonus for single-parent families in a vulnerable situation is a “clear example” of the “confusion” created by some aid due to the terms used.
“Concepts such as family unit, residence or core of coexistence contribute to make the drafting of the legislation even more complicated and make it extremely difficult for the interested parties, even the managers, to understand it”, he pointed out.
In this regard, he warned that 81% of these families do not currently have this voucher “largely due to the lack of clarifying information about access”.
“This happens despite the relative ease offered by the income access route, which only requires filling out the application and checking the ‘Special circumstances’ option, the DNI or NIE of the people who make up the cohabitation unit, the family book and the registration certificate less than 90 days old”, he explained.
Thus, he specified that these families “don’t know that they can access the social bonus as single-parent families – without the card – without further consideration, neither of home, nor of dependency, nor of the risk of social exclusion, to mention some of the included assumptions until now to the different rules that have regulated it”.
In this context, the Isadora Duncan Foundation will launch a social media campaign on Wednesday with the label
This action, which will have the support of other entities of the Federation of Single Mothers, is part of the Family Financial Education and Energy Poverty program of the Foundation, financed by the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 with the allocation of the personal income tax for other purposes of social interest.
The social voucher or thermal social voucher is an aid that the Central Government launched in October 2018 to deal with energy poverty and which is intended to protect the most vulnerable consumers. Currently, all people can be accommodated who prove that they are vulnerable consumers, justifying a certain level of income, recipients of the minimum vital income (IMV) and large families, in this case, without any discrimination criteria for income
Vulnerable people get, thanks to this voucher, a 25% discount on their electricity bill, but until December 31, 2023 the discount is 65%. In the case of vulnerable consumers considered severe, the discount is 40% and 80% until the end of this year. Large families and single parents are considered vulnerable consumers.