Minimum guaranteed income to begin in September on a trial basis

The minimum guaranteed income will start being offered on a trial basis by the beginning of September, with its universal application scheduled to begin within the first half of 2015, labour ministry sources said on Wednesday.

This was agreed during a meeting to settle the final details of the programme between a troika technical team and the Labour, Social Security

The minimum guaranteed income, a novelty by Greek standards, will first be applied in 10 municipalities to be announced shortly. More than 20 million euros will be made available to the programme's first (trial) phase, with the government planning to register an appropriate expense of up to 1.0 billion euros in the draft budget on October.

According to labour ministry sources, a four-member family with two underage children can expect to receive 400 euros a month under the programme, of which 100 euros will correspond to housing costs, 200 euros will correspond to the two adult family members, while another 100 euros will be offered for the two children. Families with only one underage child will receive 350 euros, while single-parent families' children will receive 100 euros each, as if they were adults.

In deciding whether or not to grant the allowance of the minimum guaranteed income, the welfare services will take into consideration the family income in the current year (rather than the previous year), with upper limits set at 4,800 euros for four-member families with two underage children, increasing up to 6,000 euros for four-member families with adults only. In the cases of wage earners, only 80 pct of their incomes will be taken into account.

The welfare services will also be adding up all the allowances, subsidies and unemployment benefits that a family is entitled to.

Source: AMNA