Argentine president decrees $2.6 billion in cash handouts for children of unemployed

Argentine leader decrees subsidies for poor kids

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — President Cristina Fernandez decreed Thursday that Argentina will provide direct cash subsidies of about $47 a month per child to families whose parents are unemployed or work informally.

She said her antipoverty program will cost the social security system nearly 10 billion pesos ($2.6 billion) a year — money that will come from the public pension system nationalized last year. She is imposing it by decree, in a way that needs no approval by Congress.

Her surprise announcement in a nationally televised address outflanked opposition politicians who have long considered universal cash subsidies to be their top priority, and who met just last week with leaders of the Roman Catholic Church to refine their proposals.

“This is the fairest way of redistributing wealth because it pays for each child, without distinction,” the president said.

Her political opponents said it falls short of the universal program they have called for, since it limits the cash handouts to parents who are unemployed or work in low-wage, informal jobs and don’t declare their income. Elisa Carrio, who takes her seat in Congress in December, has said Argentine children should get the money simply by virtue of their citizenship.

Fernandez said the subsidy will be provided for up to five children per family until they are 18 years old, and there’s no age limit with disabled children. Parents need only prove that their children attend school and are vaccinated.

Argentina already provides a variety of social welfare programs, including the same per-child subsidies to parents who declare income of up to 4,800 pesos a month. But bureaucrats generally decide whether or not a family gets the subsidies — a system that governors, mayors and other local politicians have used to both reward loyal followers and punish other citizens.

Cash subsidy programs, while expensive, have proven quite popular in Latin America.

The groundbreaker was Brazil, whose Zero Hunger programs now include $6.9 billion for “family grants” that reach about 50 million people, providing an average of $54 per poor family regardless of their employment status.

The money has reduced poverty, improved education rates and enabled desperately poor people to consume more, in turn stimulating the economy — and has been a major reason for the popularity of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Fernandez’s administration has been widely criticized for releasing official data showing poverty declining even as independent analysts say it is rising sharply.

According to the government, poverty fell to 13.9 percent this year, compared to 17.8 percent in mid-2008. This conflicts with data gathered by the Catholic University of Argentina, which found that 44 percent of households don’t have enough income to pay for food, health care, clothing, taxes and services.

Fernandez insisted that poverty has declined under her presidency and that of her husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007).

The subsidies will do even more to help the poor, she said, but “if I told you that it would end poverty, it would be hypocritical and cynical.”

Associated Press writer Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Brazil, contributed to this report.