What is the Minimum Budget for an Adequate Social Participation in Spain? An Estimate Through the Reference Budgets Approach

In Spain, the percentage of population living in poverty or social exclusion has consistently increased since 2007. This trend makes it unlikely to reach the Spanish National Europe 2020 target, which is to reduce in 1.400.000 the people at risk of poverty or exclusion. At the same time, the Spanish Minimum Income Protection Schemes are complex, fragmented and inefficient. In the context of the Europe 2020 Strategy, reference budgets are regarded as a tool to improve poverty measurement and assess income adequacy. This paper describes the development of the Spanish Reference Budgets: priced baskets containing the minimum goods and services necessary for well-described types of families to have an adequate social participation. The study here presented combines various sources of information: national guidelines, expert opinion, scientific literature, survey data on cultural habits and focus group discussions using a cross-country comparable approach. Based on a needs-based perspective, we have estimated a minimum budget threshold that ranges from 427€ to 1569€/month depending on the type of family. Without considering housing and car costs, the healthy food budget is the one that represents a higher share of the total budget in all family types. The weight of the other baskets depends on the household composition, mainly on the presence of children. The aim of our approach is to assess family and children needs, as well as to orient policies designed to guarantee social rights and reduce children poverty and social exclusion.