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Spain to Launch ‘Minimum Living Wage’ for Poorest in May

The government estimated the subsidy would be paid to at least one million households on a permanent basis starting in May

Spain to Launch ‘Minimum Living Wage’ for Poorest in May
Laborers wearing protective face masks exit a construction site in Barcelona, Spain. (Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Spain’s government says it will pay tens of thousands of the country’s lowest-income households a “minimum living wage” starting in May, a campaign-trail promise that has been accelerated because of the massive job losses triggered by pandemic lockdowns.

The Socialist-led government estimated the subsidy would be paid to at least one million households on a permanent basis starting in May. Madrid didn’t put a figure on the “minimum living wage.”

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his far-left coalition partners Podemos have pledged to put in place some kind of government subsidy to boost the living standards of the country’s most cash-strapped citizens. When Sanchez became premier in January, the two parties pledged to boost government spending to continue to fuel what had been several years of robust economic expansion.

“It’s a commitment by the government to those families and people who have serious difficulty to cover their basic expenses that the minimum living wage is underway in the month of May,” the government said in a statement Thursday.

Spain to Launch ‘Minimum Living Wage’ for Poorest in May

Spain’s unemployment rate was already among the highest in the developed world before the pandemic prompted the government to shutter parts of the economy. The number of Spaniards filing for jobless claims in March surged in the highest monthly increase on record.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.