Madrid (EFE).- The autonomous communities with the highest percentage of the population in severe poverty are the Canary Islands, with 15% of the population affected, Andalusia, with 10.3% of its inhabitants in this situation, and Murcia, which shows a percentage of 10.2%.
According to the data released by the State Association of Directors and Managers in Social Services, which points out how, in addition to these communities, Catalonia or Madrid also present high numbers of affected population.
In the case of Catalonia, 9% of its population is in this alarming situation (almost 700,000 people).
In the case of Madrid, the percentage drops to 7.4%, although the absolute figure, given the large number of inhabitants of this community, amounts to almost half a million Spaniards.
Navarra and the Basque Country, with percentages of 3.4% and 4.6%, are the best positioned in this order.
EMERGENCY AID
The report from which these data are extracted focuses on emergency aid from local entities, one of the three aid received in our country by people in severe poverty, those who cannot afford meat or fish every two days or that they cannot pay for heating… or that they suffer even more serious deprivations.
The almost four million Spaniards in a situation of severe poverty aspire to receive state aid (Minimum Vital Income); regional (Minimum Insertion Income) or aid that, theoretically, is urgent and granted by city councils, councils or councils.
The report points out a problem regarding these latest local aids, which must cover an unexpected vulnerability for a few months: its slowness.
Despite the meager amounts in question, an average of 172 euros per year per recipient, local aid follows a bureaucracy typical of a grant and not urgent aid that the families that request it should receive within weeks and not months, according to José Manuel Ramírez Navarro, president of the aforementioned association.
DIFFERENCES ACCORDING TO TERRITORIES
To this is added the diversity of budgets, demanded requirements and forms of processing according to the territories, which yields a map of bloody differences.
Thus, in Murcia only 0.1% of the population with severe material deprivation receives emergency aid from local entities, in line with what happens in Galicia, where the percentage is 1.8%.
In Andalusia, the percentage of recipients of aid from local administrations out of the total number of poor is higher than the national average (59.3% in Andalusia compared to 45% on average in Spain), but the amount they receive is the lowest in comparison with the rest of communities, 75 euros per year.
Faced with this, although the Canary Islands is the one with the largest population with serious material deficiencies, the report also points out that 39% of those affected there receive aid from local entities, among which are the councils, in addition to the municipalities. These aids are 127 euros per year on average on the islands.
For their part, in Madrid people in severe poverty receive an average of only 87 euros a year in emergency aid from local entities.
In Catalonia, 71% of the poor receive urgent aid from local entities, which is 141 euros per year.
In Galicia, 6.2% of the population is in severe poverty (167,130 people). EFE
