A/HRC/44/40/Add.2 2018 did not use social protection mechanisms 24 and the share of poor adults in a jobless household who received benefits in 2016 was more than 15 percentage points below the European Union average.25 19. When support does reach people, the amount can be extremely low, as is the case for the national means-tested child benefit: just 341 euros per year for low-income families and 588 euros for the extremely poor. 26 That is actually less generous than the child tax allowance available to high-middle and upper-income families who have tax liabilities. 27 Similarly, for those who have not earned a full pension, the basic non-contributory pension is a mere 392 euros per month. 20. Spain gets what it pays for in social protection. It spends comparatively little and the results show it. In 2017, Spain spent 16.6 per cent of GDP on social protection, below the European Union average of 18.8 per cent.28 Expenditure per head was 5,439.72 euros in 2017, compared to 7,808.61 euros in the European Union, just over 40 per cent more. 29 Spain spent significantly less than other European Union countries on disability (1.6 per cent of GDP compared to a 2 per cent average), family benefits (1.2 per cent compared to 2.3 per cent), and housing and other social exclusion (0.3 per cent compared to 1.1 per cent).30 21. Over-bureaucratization of the social assistance system is a major cause of exclusion, and excessive and impracticable document requirements serve as obstacles to support it. In many municipalities, registration is the key to accessing social services, yet the requirements are prohibitive for people experiencing poverty who may be homeless, in temporary housing or unable to respond to highly specific document requests. 22. The decentralized structure of much of the non-contributory social assistance, alongside an absence of any national standard for what minimum assistance must be offered, has led to great variation among autonomous communities. That is especially true for the last layer of the social safety net, intended to prevent poverty and help low-income people without access to other benefits, the minimum income schemes (renta mínima de inserción) of autonomous communities. While some schemes clearly help people avoid poverty, others are abject failures. Support levels are low, waiting periods can extend to many months, punitive residency requirements can bar access to new residents for as long as three years and exclude homeless people completely, programmes are often incompatible with short-term or part-time jobs that might be the only options available, people aged under 25 are generally ineligible and the paperwork burden proves an insurmountable obstacle for many.31 23. The system in Madrid illustrates the inadequacy of such safety nets. Madrid has the second highest GDP in Spain, a comparatively low unemployment rate and a high cost of 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 6 Caritas uses the term “expelled society” to refer to 1.8 million people who score worst on their 35indicator multidimensional poverty index. Submission from Caritas, available from www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Poverty/VisitSpainSubmissions/32_Caritas_FOESSA_EN.pdf. European Commission, Country Report Spain 2019, (February 2019), p. 54. Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado, “Real Decreto-ley 8/2019, de 8 de marzo, de medidas urgentes de protección social y de lucha contra la precariedad laboral en la jornada de trabajo”. The precise amount of child tax credit depends on the tax rate in the parents’ autonomous community, for example 528 euros per child in Madrid. Eurostat, “Social scoreboard of indicators”. Ibid., “Country profiles”, available from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/guip/introAction.do?profile=cpro&theme=euroind&lang=en&country1= ES&country2=eu28. Eurostat, “Expenditure on social protection benefits by function, 2017 – table 1”, available from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Expenditure_on_social_ protection_benefits_by_function,_2017-table_1.png. See, for example, Autoridad Independiente de Responsabilidad Fiscal, Los Programas de Rentas Mínimas en España; Luis Ayala Cañón and others, El Sistema de Garantía de Ingresos en España: Tendencias, Resultados y Necesidades de Reforma. Informe Completo (December 2016), available from www.mscbs.gob.es/ssi/familiasInfancia/ServiciosSociales/ EstudiosNacionales/SistemGarantIngresosEnEsp.pdf.