A/HRC/44/40/Add.2 living. Although its severe poverty rate more than doubled in 10 years, from 3 per cent in 2008 to 7.8 per cent in 2017,32 its minimum income scheme provides a miserly 400 euros a month, the lowest in Spain. It reaches only 1.5 per cent of the population (33,000 households or 106,746 people)33 and the Special Rapporteur heard from many who were formally and de facto excluded because of onerous requirements. One woman explained that she had lost the benefit when she accepted a job on a probationary basis, but could not restart the benefit after she was not hired permanently and became homeless. 24. The way the Madrid programme has been administered in recent years has made it only more irrelevant. The approval rate of initial applications fell drastically from 50 per cent in 2016 to 23 per cent in 201834 and the number of suspensions and terminations more than doubled (approximately 4,850 to 10,040 suspensions and 2,708 to 5,767 terminations). Such appalling results suggest that the system either intentionally excludes people or is extremely poorly designed. 25. A well-designed and adequately funded national minimum income scheme could go a long way to fixing what is broken, but it needs to avoid key shortcomings. Both the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility and Oxfam have made such a proposal. 35 It should have at least the following characteristics: full portability between autonomous communities; compatibility with the existing labour market so that people do not lose support for accepting low-paid or temporary work; an adequate amount that tracks the cost of living to ensure that people are not living in poverty; an individualized and flexible approach to administration that minimizes burdensome paperwork; availability to people aged under 25; and a lack of excessive conditions linked to job searching that bureaucratize the system and depress uptake. 26. Reducing the high level of poverty in Spain will require major additional spending to fix a broken social assistance system. Tax deductions are no substitute, as they necessarily only benefit wealthier people who pay income taxes, nor can employment alone alleviate poverty. People in poverty very much want to work, but often cannot find decent jobs amid high unemployment and precarious job opportunities. Education 27. Education and poverty are closely linked. In Spain, 33.7 per cent of those with a primary education or lower were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2018, compared with just 12.6 per cent of those with higher education, 36 yet absolute public investment in education as a percentage of GDP fell significantly between 2009 and 2017.37 There are real problems with the cost and quality of education in Spain, as well as segregation by socioeconomic status and ethnicity. 28. Spain provides free education, but families may need to cover the cost of transportation, food, books and other supplies, despite initiatives to cover these expenses. According to Save the Children, such expenses increased by 34 per cent between 2009 and 201638 and 32 per cent of families reportedly face difficulty paying education costs. The 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Juan Carlos Llano Ortiz, “El estado de la pobreza seguimiento del indicador de pobreza y exclusión social en España 2008–2017”, European Anti-Poverty Network (2018), p. 13. Comunidad de Madrid, Renta Mínima de Inserción. Informe 2018, p. 23 (2019). There were approximately 13,800 initial stage adjudications in 2016 and 12,650 in 2018, Comunidad de Madrid: Renta Mínima de Inserción. Informe 2018, p. 54, and Balance Anual de Gestión de la Renta Mínima de Inserción. Comunidad de Madrid 2016, (2017), p. 13. Autoridad Independiente de Responsabilidad Fiscal, Los Programas de Rentas Mínimas en España; Manuel V. Gómez, “Oxfam Intermón propone una renta contra la pobreza del 30% del salario medio,” El Pais, 20 February 2020. National Institute of Statistics, “Risk of poverty or social exclusion (AROPE indicator), by educational level attained (persons aged 16 years old and over)”. In 2017 the figure was 4.24 per cent of GDP (49.458 million euros) compared to 4.99 per cent of GDP (53.895 million euros) in 2009, European Anti-Poverty Network, “Poverty watch Spain 2019”, available from www.eapn.es/publicaciones/367/poverty-watch-2019, pp. 32–33. European Commission, Country Report Spain 2019, p. 50. 7