JAKARTA – Social assistance (Social Assistance) is really needed by the community, especially the Emergency PPKM extended until the end of July 2021. However, according to data from the Ministry of Social Affairs, there are only subsidies for 10 million beneficiary families (KPM) for the Family Hope Program (PKH) and 10 million KPM for cash social assistance (BST).
Economist Bhima Yudhistira said that the distribution of social assistance should be extended to the community, not just 20 million KPM. “The number of people who are vulnerable to poverty is only 115 million people, so 20 million KPM is too little,” said Bhima in Jakarta, Sunday (18/7/2021).
In addition, Bhima also previously proposed that cash social assistance be increased to Rp. 1 million from Rp. 300 thousand per family per month.
“The social assistance is clearly not enough if the cash assistance is only Rp. 300 thousand per month per beneficiary family. That means that in a crisis situation, the nominal social assistance fund is not much different from normal conditions,” he said.
PPKM has been implemented since July 3, but there are still many people who have not received assistance. Including the plan to provide rice assistance to the affected communities.
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This condition is considered to cause people to fall into the abyss of poverty. This is because the implementation of emergency PPKM makes it difficult for some people to meet their daily needs.
“Ideally, assistance should be given first before emergency PPKM is carried out, because what is happening now is that many cannot work because of restrictions,” he said.
