Combating poverty and social exclusion through cross-sectoral policies

After 10 months engaged in public consultation meetings and holding talks with NGOs and experts, the Ministry for Family and Social Solidarity last week launched a Green Paper outlining the framework for poverty reduction.

The Green Paper will see the Labour government commit itself to reduce Malta's poverty rate by 22,000 persons by next year.

The ambitious challenge comes as a total of 22,801 children live at risk of poverty or social exclusion. 13,000 of these kids live in households with an annual income of €6,500. 3,000 others live in households with an annual income of €8,800.

As is Social Solidarity Minister Marie Louise Coleiro Preca's most repeated quote, poverty in Malta is not a perception but a reality.

A statistics on income and living conditions survey carried out in 2012, placed females in the northern harbour as the group most at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The numbers totalled 15,448, followed by 13,428 females living in the southern harbour.

In the case of males, 13,328 living in the northern harbour were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, followed by 11,438 in the southern harbour.

Due to a smaller population, Gozo and Comino registered a total of 5,168 males and females.

Collectively, the six regions registered a staggering 93,783 individuals living at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

A Social Face of Europe 2012 report found that more and more Maltese citizens are at risk of entering the poverty trap, but fewer manage to exit. According to the Green Paper, Malta also tends to score low in terms of opportunities for social mobility.

In fact, 2011 statistics show that only one in seven people manage to move up from the lowest tier of society.

Children, young people, elderly and the unemployed are at greater risk of poverty or social exclusion, but not only. Persons suffering from physical and mental health problems, those experiencing abuse, asylum seekers and immigrants, persons with addictive behaviour and those suffering different sorts of discrimination are all at risk.

According to Coleiro Preca, the Green Paper seeks to promote "a two-pronged" approach through adequate income and high quality social services.

One of the key policy options of the Green Paper seeks to address in the real income and social benefits. The government is now urging stakeholders to consider a number of policy options including consolidating the social benefit system through the streamlining and simplification of means-tested benefit.

As part of the pensions reform programme, a study of ways to allow future retirees to buy back years - thus allowing individuals to retire on some form of pension without resorting to social assistance - is being proposed.

Despite undergoing various reforms, Malta's social protection expenditure as a percentage of GDP has fallen since 2009, especially for people with a disability, the unwell, the old aged and the unemployed.

Alternattiva Demokratika has persistently called on the different administrations to increase the minimum wage.

AD's social policy spokesperson Robert Callus yesterday argued that the rise in poverty and material deprivation rates should be addressed through concrete policy initiatives assisting vulnerable groups and promoting greater social justice.

"Raising minimum wage is a tangible measure to combat in-work poverty, to make work pay and encourage greater active inclusion," Callus said, adding that the current rate of minimum wage was keeping "hundreds of families in poverty".

Noting that the Green Paper gave a comprehensive analysis of the poverty situation, yet it "presents nothing really new in terms of pragmatic initiatives".

In terms of employment, the government has committed itself to provide for free childcare where both parents are employed and to working single parents who are the primary care givers. It has also pledged to ensure the active inclusion of the marginalised into the workforce using employment incentives, work-based learning, cooperatives and other social enterprises.