IFE: bad political decisions and worse technical design

In June 2020, an agreement was established between the Government and an important part of the opposition, promoted by the Medical Association, which convened a group of economists who proposed to establish a framework of 12 billion dollars to deal with the social effects and caused by the pandemic. After an initial refusal by the Government, a negotiation space was established that ended up agreeing on a project in Congress, which authorizes the use of the same figure proposed by Colmed for 2020 and 2021, mainly for investment, reactivation of the economy, subsidies to employment and others.

Following the same logic and within the framework of this agreement, a special gloss was incorporated into the 2021 Budget Law that seemed entirely reasonable. To prevent the Government from continuing to arrive late, the power was established to unilaterally resolve the delivery of benefits, without the need to go through Congress again, in order to react quickly to the requirements that the evolution of the pandemic was demanding. . Thus, the Government first resolved the delivery of the Christmas bonds and now the new COVID IFE and COVID Bond, announced for January and February.

It was reasonable, since it was expected that it would be a well-used faculty and that the Executive had learned from its bad initiatives and projects that were partially – within its powers – corrected by Congress, without relapsing into the bad design of policies and instruments that their previous proposals had shown, both in the insufficiency of their designs and in the serious problems in implementation.

Unfortunately, this did not happen and we see the worst synthesis of bad political decisions and worst technical design.

With the Christmas bonuses, the Government inaugurated on the economic plane the already failed health policy of a kind of dynamic quarantine, delivering a bonus of $ 25,000 for each member of the household (according to the Social Registry of Households) and who has been a beneficiary of the sixth contribution of the IFE. However, the amount was $ 55,000 per person for families living in a commune that has been in quarantine (Phase 1) during the last week of November (from November 24 to 30). This, regardless, for example, that they may have been in quarantine for two or three months before. Technically it is not possible to find arguments to support a decision of this type. What there is is a political decision to save resources with a mostly meager bonus and a larger amount, but very low coverage. 27 communes that in total are equivalent to less than 10% of the universe of beneficiaries.

Probably this bad public policy went unnoticed in the middle of the second withdrawal of funds by the AFPs, so that the state benefit passed without major importance compared to the amounts of the withdrawals of own resources.
For January and February, the Government repeats the formula with two benefits:

-The IFE COVID, which is defined as “a contribution that must be requested every month for families that reside in communes in phase 1 or 2 and that, being below the established maximum income, meet any of the following requirements: Belonging to 60 % most vulnerable according to the RSH; at least one member of the beneficiary household of the sixth IFE payment (phase 1 only); at least one member of the household beneficiary of the Family Subsidy (SUF) or user of the Chile Seguridades y Oportunidades System (SS and OO). “The amount of this benefit is also variable according to the periods of time in which a commune was in quarantine. Yes In the first period, the commune was quarantined for four weeks, each member will receive 100,000 pesos, and if the commune was in quarantine between 14 and 27 days, each member will receive 80,000 pesos.

-The COVID Voucher is a “contribution that must be requested every month for families who reside in communes in phase 3 or 4 and who, being below the established maximum income, have at least one member of the household who is a beneficiary of the SUF or user of SS and OO ”. The amount of this benefit is $ 25,000.

The creative technical design is based on the sanitary condition in which each commune was in the previous month. Thus, for the payment of January 2021, the period between November 27 and December 31 is considered. While, for February 2021, the period between December 28 and January 31 will be taken.

If for months the need to reduce targeting has been raised across the board, now the Government is superfocusing. If for months the automaticity and simplification of the benefit delivery mechanisms has been considered as essential to make their delivery timely and efficient, now the Government returns to the application system every month, ignoring the digital gap that affects half of the population. most vulnerable population in the country and with unintelligible requirements.

But worse still, if with the dynamic quarantines the Government assumed that the circulation of the virus could be determined territorially between communes, ignoring the natural circulation of people, even more so when many of them are in the same cities, these benefits seem to be sustained in the Artifice that the economic and social effects of the pandemic can be territorially and temporally referenced. In other words, they depend on the fact that the community itself is in a certain phase and that the effect of time is immediate, that is, the economic situation of individuals and families depends on the phase in which the place of residence is currently.

It is hard to find better examples than these that bring together such a bad political decision with a worse technical design in the same instrument. I will not repeat the phrase of the lack of street of the authorities, but at least there is a deep ignorance of reality and an over-ideology tinged with technique, which are scary.

Some final examples show the inconsistency and the unsustainability of the technical design of these “benefits”. A person may have applied for the IFE COVID when their commune was in phase 2 and when they receive the benefit, it will be in phase 3 or, worse still, they could only apply for the COVID Voucher for being in phase 3 and when they receive it, they will be in phase 1 or 2 or, residing in a phase 3 commune, but working in a commune that is in phase 1 or 2. The possibilities are varied and each one makes the design more ridiculous and regrettable.

If we review the benefits provided by the State during the pandemic, each and every one of those who passed through Congress were improved, despite the Government, which in each process accused obstructionism on the part of the opposition. The latter did not go through Congress as a result of the November agreement and are an example of poor design.

It seems that we have a government that does not learn, that insists on insufficient benefits decoupled from health needs to face the pandemic, placing the cost of the crisis on the people themselves and forcing them to disregard their own health instructions.

Good faith and rationality do not seem to have a place with authorities who reiterate the same errors over and over again, blaming the State for being incapable, when the problem is their own arrogance and technical incapacity, added to their own inability to listen.