Research Department, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 Nov 4;16(11):e0259050. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259050. eCollection 2021.
Latin American governments swiftly implemented income assistance programs to sustain families' livelihoods during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. This paper analyzes the potential coverage and generosity of these measures and assesses the suitability of current safety nets to deal with unexpected negative income shocks in 10 Latin American countries. The expansion of pre-existing programs (most notably conditional cash transfers and non-contributory pensions) during the COVID-19 crisis was generally insufficient to compensate for the inability to work among the poorest segments of the population. When COVID-19 ad hoc programs are analyzed, the coverage and replacement rates of regular labor income among households in the first quintile of the country's labor income distribution increase substantially. Yet, these programs present substantial coverage challenges among families composed of fundamentally informal workers who are non-poor, but are at a high risk of poverty. These results highlight the limitations of the fragmented nature of social protection systems in the region.
拉丁美洲政府在 COVID-19 居家令期间迅速实施了收入援助计划，以维持家庭生计。本文分析了这些措施的潜在覆盖范围和慷慨程度，并评估了当前安全网在应对拉丁美洲 10 个国家意外负面收入冲击的适宜性。在 COVID-19 危机期间，扩大现有计划（尤其是有条件现金转移支付和非缴费型养恤金）的范围通常不足以弥补最贫困人口无法工作的问题。在分析 COVID-19 特别计划时，在国家劳动收入分配中处于第一五分位的家庭中，正规劳动收入的覆盖范围和替代率大大增加。然而，这些计划在由非贫困但处于高度贫困风险的基本非正规工人组成的家庭中存在重大的覆盖范围挑战。这些结果突出了该地区社会保护系统分散性质的局限性。
