Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19: a Real-Time Review of Country Measures
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Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19: A Real-Time Review of Country Measures “Living paper” version 13 (September 18, 2020) Public Disclosure Authorized Ugo Gentilini*, Mohamed Almenfi*, Pamela Dale**, Robert Palacios*, Harish Natarajan*, Guillermo Alfonso Galicia Rabadan*, Yuko Okamura*, John Blomquist*, Miglena Abels*, Gustavo Demarco* and Indhira Santos* * World Bank; ** UNICEF This paper benefited enormously from contributions by Aysenur Acar, Hanan Ahli, Nazanin Akhgar, Haleem Hassan Kashkol Al- Kazali, Amel Allahoum, Andrew Allieu, Sulaiman Al Maazmi, Noora Al Qassi, Elena Andreeva, Colin Andrews, Edward Archibald, Temilade Aromolaran, Jehan Arulpragasam, Angela Elzir Assy, Ashiq Aziz, Indra Baatarkhuu, Reena Badiani-Magnusson, Yusuf Bafozoda, Sarah Bailey, Paul Bance, Anna Baranova, Mehdi Barouni, Roland Berenger Berehoudougou, Martina Bergthaller, Anush Bezhanyan, Sharon Corinne Benzoni, Mira Bierbaum, Gaston Mariano Blanco, Mark Blecher, Christian Bodewig, , Stefanie Brodmann, Public Disclosure Authorized Hugo Brousset Chaman, Dimitriy Bychkov, Yoonyoung Cho, Tungalag Chuluun, Francesca Ciardi, Emmanuelle Collet, Facundo Cuevas, Matthew Cummins, Pamela Dale, James Damon, Louise Moreira Daniel, Marie-Christina Dankmeyer, Benedicte Leroy De La Briere, Gustavo Demarco, Anastasiya Denisova, Malin Linnea Sofia Ed, Randa El-Rashidi, Gerardo Escaroz, Fatou Fall, Maliha Fanning, Olesia Feoktistova, Katharina Maria Fietz, Gabrielle Fox, Nicholas Freeland, Luis Frota, Carlos Galian, Jordi Jose Gallego- Ayala, Maria Concepcion Steta Gandara, Elena Glinskaya, Elisaveta Gouretskaia, Rebekka Grun, Sabina Guliyeva, Sibusiso Gumbi, Melis Guven, Courtney Hallink, Mahdi Halmi, Siddharth Hari, Gonzalo Javier Reyes Hartley, Abu Yadetta Hateu, Alessandra Heinemann, Himanshi Jain, Guillaume Hingel, Johannes Hoenigl, Maddalena Honorati, Armenuhi Hovakimyan, Su Su Htay, Roberto Iacono, Adina-Maria Iorganda, Kumiko Imai, Adina-Maria Iorganda, Buthaina al-Iryani, Aylin Isik-Dikmelik, Marijana Jasarevic, Mustafa Kadhim Mohammed, Amjad Zafar Khan, Alex Kamurase, Sandor Karacsony, Dmitri Karasyov, Selma Kasic, Yasuhiro Kawasoe, Ayaba Gilberte Kedote, Qaiser Khan, Johannes Koettl, Julian Alexander Koschorke, Mona Korsgard, Adea Kryeziu, Francesca Lamanna, Maria Laura, Aleksandar Lazovski, Matthieu Lefebvre, Kook Hee Lee, Phillippe George Leite, Louisa Lippi, Ana Veronica Lopez, Christina Lowe, Mattias Lundberg, Mattia Makovic, Iftikhar Malik, Alicia C. Marguerie, Jonathan Marskell, Ana Georgina Marin Espinosa, Alessandra Marini, Erica Mattellone, Shea McClanahan, Karla McEvoy, Cem Mete, Andrei Mikhnev, Natalia Public Disclosure Authorized Millan, Emma Mistiaen, Anita Mittal, Khalid Ahmed Ali Moheyddeen, Matteo Morgandi, Harry Edmund Moroz, Emma Mercedes Monsalve Montiel, Ingrid Veronica Mujica, Lindi Mzankomo, Martien Van Nieuwkoop, Desislava Enikova Nikolova, NIFI (Research Institute of Finance, Moscow), Nga Nguyet Nguyen, Noel Muller, Anthony Njage, Marina Novikova, Marija Novkovic, Foluke Adetola Ojelabi, Philip O’Keefe, Yulia Olenik, Vitorino Mello Oliveira, Junko Onishi, Ian Orton, Mirey Ovadiya, Efsan Nas Ozen, Truman Packard, Karuna Pal, Robert Palacios, Montserrat Pallares-Miralles, Ekaterina Pankratova, Ana Pantelic, Jasmina Papa, Clemente Avila Parra, Kenia Parsons, Nathalie Pazmino, Luca Pellerano, Remy Pigois, Ariel Pino, Juul Pinxten, Lucian Bucur Pop, Aleksandra Posarac, Nadine Poupart, Ana Prodanovic, Pamela Pozarny, Rodrigo Quintana, Lourdes M. Rivera, Nina Rosas Raffo, Amanina Binti Abdur Rahman, Zandile Portia Ratshitanga, F. Zehra Rizvi, Ruth Reyes Rodriguez, Luz Stella Rodriguez, Mba Minko Djekombe Rony, Pedro Rosas, Friederike Uta Rother, Solene Rougeaux, Monica Rubio, Mira Saidi, Manuel Salazar, Marijana Šalinović, Glayson dos Sonya Sampson, Gevorg Sargsyan Indhira Santos, Karin Schelzig, Achim Schmillen, Anita Schwarz, Sirma Demir Seker, Karin Seyfert, Maheshwor Shrestha, Ivan Shulga, Nuno Cunha Meira Simoes, Karan Singhal, Benjamin Kakule Sivasima, Charles Chilufya SJ, Andrius Skarnulis, Oleksiy A. Sluchynskyy, Danilo Smolovic, Rene Antonio Leon Solano, Tayana Charisse Oliveira de Souza, Tayllor Spadafora, Federico Spano, Maya Stern-Plaza, Victoria Strokova, Anna Sukhova, Changqing Sun, Kalilou Sylla, Claudia Zambra Taibo, Caroline Anne Isabelle Tassot, Emil Tesliuc, Mauro Testaverde, Samman Thapa, Stefan Thewissen, Andrei Tretyak, Julieta M. Trias, Fiona Stewart, Gulsana Turusbekova, Emre Uckardesler, Silas Udahemuka, Uladzimir Valetka, Rashiel Velvarde, Fabio Veras, Andrea Vermehren, Dewen Wang, Michael Weber, Asha M. Williams, Penny Williams, Briana Wilson, Natalia Winder-Rossi, Gelila Public Disclosure Authorized Woodeneh, Yuliya Yafimenka, Ruslan G. Yemtsov, Soonhwa Yi, Usama Zafar, Alketa Zazo, Nahla Zeitoun, Lansong Zhang, Yukun Zhu, Roman Zhukovskyi, Mustapha Ziroili, Rocco Zizzamia, and Maria Zlatareva. Special thanks go to Michal Rutkowski for his precious guidance and support, and Claudia Rodriguez-Alas and the ASPIRE team at the World Bank This review present preliminary findings and should be interpreted with caution. An accompanying online Excel file includes all underlying data used for this paper. For more information, please contact Ugo Gentilini ([email protected]). 1 1. Introduction The number of countries and territories that have introduced, or planned to do so, social protection responses to Covid-19 continue to grow. Over the past six months, a total of 212 countries or territories, 12 more 1 since our last update in July, have planned or put in place 1,179 social protection measures (figure 1). The latter includes an additional 124 interventions compared to version 12 of this review. Figure 1. Trends in countries’ social protection measures, March-September 212 1400 200 195 200 190 181 11791200 171 159 1055 151 1024 1000 150 937 133 126 870 803 800 Number of countries (bars countries of Number 106 752 685 100 84 600 564 505 418 400 Number of measures (line) 50 45 283 200 103 0 0 20. Mar 27. Mar 3. April 10. April17. April24. April 1. May 8. May 15. May22. May 12. June10. July 18. Sept Regions present different combinations of social protection components. Compared to the last update in July, the broad composition remains similar, with marginal changes in the order of one percentage point. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest share of social assistance (84%), followed by South Asia (80%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (72%). North America, the Middle East and North Africa, and Europe and Central Asia display a relatively higher reliance on social insurance (between 32% and 44%), while East Asia and ECA present the largest share of labor market measures (between 18-20%) (figure 2, left panel). In terms of country income groups, social assistance claims most of social protection measures in low-income setting, a share that gradually erodes at countries climb the income ladder (figure 2, right panel). 1 These include Burundi, Faroe Islands, Isle of Man, Macao, New Caledonia, Palau, Réunion, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, San Marino, Tanzania, Turkmenistan, US Virgin Islands. 2 Figure 2. Composition of social protection Covid responses by region 100% 100% 4% 4% 7% 6% 11% 11% 11% 11% 14% 8% 14% 18% 20% 22% 9% 16% 80% 80% 18% 20% 24% 32% 24% 24% 23% 44% 34% 30% 60% 60% 88% 40% 84% 80% 40% 72% 69% 65% 61% 59% 57% 61% 46% 50% 48% 20% 20% 0% 0% LIC HIC EAP AFR SAR ECA LAC LMIC MNA UMIC World World North America Social Assistance Social Insurance Labor Markets How much are countries spending on social protection responses? For a subset of 119 countries for which data is available, a total of $789.8 billion is being spent on social protection measures for Covid-19 (table 1). This represents a significant increase since July in absolute terms (a difference of about $200 billion). That represents almost a percentage point (0.89%) of the 87.7 trillion global GDP in 2019 and well exceeds the level of social protection spending that occurred as part of the global response to the 2010 financial crisis. On a per capita basis, about $243 are being provided per person: this ranges from $695 in high income countries to $4 in low-income settings. While the latter amount is low, it is four times higher than in July. Table 1. Spending in social protection Covid-19 response, select countries (n=119) Social Assistance Social insurance Labor Markets Spending pc Countries Spending ($) Countries Spending ($) Countries Spending ($) $/per capita LIC 13 1,586,985,461 - - - - 4 LMIC 29 55,171,282,058 4 1,050,126,211 5 1,359,579,479 28 UMIC 36 71,940,840,189 13 97,284,846,378 10 7,918,236,395 57 HIC 28 511,561,177,859 9 21,365,039,265 10 20,628,207,639 695 AFR 24 5,949,230,341 1 86,207 2 2,259,131,859 $10 EAP 18 186,715,308,294 7 85,827,239,269 9 25,013,918,532 $359 ECA 19 77,149,038,251 8 19,122,117,422 10 1,609,802,007 $638 LAC 30 38,895,106,523 7 13,036,568,956 2 479,000,000 $97 MNA 9 6,392,365,000 2 1,709,000,000 2 544,171,114 $86 NA 1 290,005,000,000 1 5,000,000 0 - $442 SAR 5 35,154,237,159 - - 0 - $8 106 640,260,285,567 26 119,700,011,855 25 29,906,023,512 243 3 2. Social assistance Social assistance accounts for most of the social protection response. A total of 724 measures were recorded, accounting for 61.4% of the response. About 51% of those safety net measures, and 31.3% of global measures, are various forms of cash-based transfers in 158 countries (table 2). Six cash transfer measures are provided as universal programs. In-kind transfers are also substantial, with 22% of the social