FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG IMPROVING SOCIAL PROTECTION IN ROMANIA 3 MEANS-TESTED INCOME SUPPORT BENEFITS: GUARANTEED MINIMUM INCOME AND FAMILY ALLOWANCE FOR LOW INCOME FAMILIES WITH DEPENDENT CHILDREN The Guaranteed Minimum Income(GMI) is the most basic social assistance benefit and is intended to target the most deprived individuals. However, since its adoption in 2001, the GMI has undergone numerous changes which have increasingly constrained access to it for those most in need, while also reinforcing behavioural control and the punitive elements of the policy. Despite having dubious empirical backing(Arpinte 2019), these disciplining aspects of the policy are fuelled by stereotypical beliefs about people who receive the GMI. As recent debates surrounding the amendment of the GMI law illustrate⁶, punitive measures are held to be justified because'in Romania there are almost 7 million dependants on the social assistance system' who'complain about poverty, but do not rush to take up a job, choosing instead to leech off society through social assistance'. Another commonly held view is that'the state should not make things convenient for those dependent on social assistance' and should not provide financial assistance'to a bunch of lazy individuals who do not want to work without regard for the fact that their income is being financed by their fellow citizens'. The foregoing narrative is part and parcel of a current in liberal­conservative notions of the Romanian welfare state as a bloated item of expenditure in the public budget, crowding out investment in other areas. These messages are taken up in the media, which portrays the poor as undeserving and incapable of adjusting to the requirements of the market( Ț oc, 2020). However, a realistic look at data on the number of GMI beneficiaries and total expenditures on the policy reveals that this denigrating narrative obscures the failure of the GMI to serve as a significant policy instrument in lifting people out of poverty. Indeed, as Table 2. shows, between 2011 and 2020 the number of GMI beneficiaries has decreased by 17 thousand. The data also reveal that in the past decade, the number of beneficiaries has fluctuated, peaking out at 245 thousand in 2016. Fluctuations in the number of beneficiaries have been driven mainly by administrative changes in policy, such as reallocation of the GMI budget benefit from resource-poor local budgets to the national budget, a move which allowed for a temporary increase in the coverage rate(Arpinte, 2019). The data also show that the average level of the GMI benefit has changed over time, but that the change has been marginal relative to the poverty line⁷ in Romania. Moreover, changes in average benefit levels have been driven by the changing demographic profile of those who apply for the GMI rather than by an increase in the generosity of the programme. As the GMI is linked to the social reference indicator (ISR), whose value has remained unchanged since 2008, the real value of benefits has declined over time. Table 2 The evolution of the number of GMI beneficiary families& single persons and the average amount of social assistance benefits received Number of beneficiaries(000s) Average benefit(RON) 2011 186 173 2012 193 179 2013 217 205 2014 240 230 2015 225 229 2016 245 276 2017 231 278 At-Risk of Poverty rate(AROPE)⁸ 28.4 28.7 30.2 30.0 31.0 29.3 Source: Ministry of Labour and Social Protection. 2018 200 276 27.3 2019 174 267 30.0 2020 169 263 6 Expunere de motive, http://www.cdep.ro/proiecte/2018/100/90/2/em250.pdf of poverty and social exclusion. It is composed of three dimensions: monetary 7 According to the National Institute for Statistics, the relative poverty line in relative poverty, material deprivation and low work intensity. See: Romania in 2018 was RON 750/month. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/People_at_risk 8 AROPE was developed by Eurostat as a three-dimensional indicator of the risk_of_poverty_or_social_exclusion(accessed: 15 September 2020). 10