Three clicks, three truths and three realities with a Polaroid camera. One: 20% of Income Guarantee recipients are poor workers who benefit from this benefit in addition to empty wages. Two: one quarter of beneficiaries receive to supplement miserable pensions. Three: 45% of the perceptual people are women. These moments taken by the camera draw a deeply rooted reality.
The RGI (Income Guarantee) is already a well-known acronym. What it suggests to each of us is not the same case. The Basque establishment is committed to internalizing the distorted image of the IGR. Defusing photos made with polaroid with all the filters and tricks we want, when we hear the RGI, think of “fraud,” “laziness,” “excessive budget,” “dishonesty,” “cheats,” or “parasites.” After sowing the venom, they feel fully legitimated to get the guts out of the IGR law passed in 2008.
Is the expression “untangle” exaggerated? The data will show us that no, that it is not excessive. In 2018, the overall amount of the GFR was EUR 649 (for a beneficiary who lives alone) and EUR 732 for a pensioner. How much will you receive in 2019? Well, after months of staging, proposals and promises, the NIP has approved by bill an increase of 3.5% in the overall amount and 4.5% for pensioners.
Over the past decade, the number of people receiving unemployment benefit has increased considerably, by 62 per cent more. No doubt, this data must ignite the alarms.
But do we know what the amounts would be if the 2008 law were complied with? If the law was complied with, the overall amount would be EUR 924 and that of pensioners EUR 1,050. Let's do a translation exercise, a translation exercise: Without the draft law of the Basque Government, the number of the IGR would be cut by 28% from the 2008 law. The recently adopted bill is 25 per cent. A scandalous massacre that does not appear in the headlines of any press!
Over the past decade, the number of people receiving unemployment benefit has increased considerably, by 62 per cent more. No doubt, this has to revive the alarms of the fact that more and more people are at risk of poverty. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to interview a number of RGI beneficiaries. One of them described the state of vulnerability: “To be at risk of poverty is to be in an emergency situation, is to be about to fall continuously.”
It is time to deepen the public protection system and society has been organized within the framework of the Charter of Social Rights of the Basque Country. Just over a year ago, Kartak launched a legislative process (ILP) in Hego Euskal Herria, precisely to strengthen the protection system that is in the spotlight. A total of 51,000 signatures have come to the Basque Parliament, but unfortunately the Basque Parliament has given the red light to the adoption of the draft law. Before the debate broke out, we were wanted to be silenced.
The Basque establishment is not concerned about vulnerability. Organised society is concerned. The burdensome organized society that wants to respond to the needs of society. The Government has unhindered the three bills. Moreover, as far as the IGR is concerned, the proposal for a law has been adopted without any vote against the Left. We know our songs don't like them. But we also know: the people that sings, will never die, will never die, will never die.