The trap of discredit: when poverty is the plan

Today, Labor Day, we are facing one of the sweetest moments for our labor market. We have reached 22 million affiliates, we are closing structural gaps, and for the first time in history, employment stability is the majority. Even so, many are looking for a scapegoat, and this time it has fallen to the most vulnerable people.

It is not a coincidence, it is a strategy. It is not a spontaneous prejudice, it is a plan. We are immersed in a calculated wave of discredit towards those who have the least, a stigma machine that seeks nothing more than to turn the victim into the culprit.

Pointing to the ‘poor’ is the most effective tool for not facing the real reasons for inequality

The sad thing is that it is not the first time it has happened. We know that history repeats itself and pointing to the 'poor' is the most effective tool to avoid facing the real reasons for inequality. By dehumanizing need, indifference is justified, and what is worse, its criminalization.

We must ask ourselves why, as a society, we allow those who have the least to be judged. It alarms me to see that social progress is being discredited and that the headlines of certain newspapers insist on the idea that the Minimum Vital Income - IMV - is a 'little handout' to live without working. Besides being false, it is unjust.

I would like you to hear them. "Now I can look for work. Nobody had given a penny for me until now." "I didn't have faith in myself. Sometimes life becomes an obstacle course. Here they gave me the tools to get back up." They remind us of something essential: behind the Minimum Vital Income there are people, stories, fears, and also dreams.

It is worth highlighting a fact. Two out of every three households receiving the IMV have had income from work in the last year. These are households with children, many of them headed by women, where the benefit complements family income, it does not replace it.

It is important to underline something that those who compare absolutely different realities often do not say: the IMV, unlike the SMI, is not an individual reference, but rather takes all members of the family unit as a reference.

The average amount of the benefit per household slightly exceeds 500 euros per month. Only 3% of households receive amounts higher than the Minimum Interprofessional Wage and they are households where five or more members live, mainly minors and dependent elderly people.

Obstacles that have names: housing precarity, health problems, digital divide, loneliness, care burdens, or emotional exhaustion

The latest FOESSA Report says that families receiving the IMV or minimum income are the group with the highest level of participation in inclusion programs and that they register high rates of active job searching (85%), up to 30 points above the average. There is no lack of will.

A person told me that vulnerability is not born of laziness, but of structural obstacles that turn every effort into an endless climb. Obstacles that have names: housing precarity, health problems, digital divide, loneliness, care burdens, or emotional exhaustion.

This is precisely one of the issues that the J-PAL Europe report “Promoting Labor Inclusion: Evidence from the Laboratory,” which we have just presented, points to. Many of the beneficiaries of the IMV are going through such urgent situations that, without prior comprehensive attention, talking only about employment falls short. That is why it is more appropriate to talk about employability or job capacity. This is where we truly have to put in effort and resources.

That is why, through the Incentive for Employment that we have just approved, we reinforce the participation of these households in the active policies deployed by all public employment services and the recipients of the benefit will be included as a reference group in the annual Plan for the Promotion of Decent Employment. Experience teaches us something fundamental: the benefit protects, but accompaniment transforms.

The fight against inequality is not won with speeches, but with policies sustained over time. Because it is not just about figures, but about accompanying vital processes that are fragile and complex.

Some call it spending and even waste. We call it social investment. Investment in childhood, in autonomy, in dignity. In the future. It is no coincidence that Europe is heading in this same direction, incorporating employment as one of the pillars of the First European Strategy against Poverty, which is about to be approved and which we have been supporting from minute one.

We need to revalidate objectives, be aware that social rights are not a definitive conquest and today face serious attempts at reversal. We need to stand firm and shield our progress against any threat. Let the history that repeats itself be that of resistance and overcoming.