BRIEF ANALYSIS OF OTHER DOMAINS OF THE WELFARE STATE 5 BRIEF ANALYSIS OF OTHER DOMAINS OF THE WELFARE STATE a. Family policies. Overall, there is a strong bias towards middle-class families, as spending on earnings-related child care leave benefits is more than ten times higher than total spending on means-tested family allowance(see Figure 3). Universal child allowance, despite its popularity, remains a costly component of social protection. Nonetheless, based on the Polish experience of successfully minimising child poverty via the new universal family allowance there(500+ program), and the collateral societal benefits of universal provisions(e.g. reinforcing willingness to support the welfare state), increasing the universal child allowance might be a viable policy option to support low­income families with children. Laying down conditions for the means-tested family allowance on school attendance fails to ensure school participation among the most disadvantaged and it furthers deepens their level of deprivation by denying access to benefits. b. The pension system is a two-pillar system, with compulsory public and private components and a third, optional, private layer. Inequalities in the public pension system¹¹ are higher than the EU average, as the highest 20% of pensions are more than four times higher than the lowest 20%. There was no minimum guaranteed pension before 2009, leading to high poverty rates especially among the elderly from rural areas, many of whom receive meagre pensions as former agricultural workers. Dualisation is evident, as the pension system discriminates between a top tier of special pensioners(e.g. judges, prosecutors, army officials) whose non-contributory pensions are subsidised through the general state budget, and those receiving a social pension. For example, in 2020 the pension of a prosecutor is on average 14 times the level of the average 11 file:///C:/Users/HP/Documents/FES_2020/european-semester_thematic­factsheet_adequacy-sustainability-pensions_ro.pdf(accessed: 15 September 2020). 12 Consiliul Național al Persoanelor Vârstnice(the National Council of Elderly People) used for 2013 the estimations of the Institutul de Cercetare a Calității Vieții(ICCV) to approximte the minimum basket of goods for elderly persons. For a single elderly person, the minimum value needed for a decent life was RON 749/ month in urban areas, and RON 716/month in rural areas(see https://www.ces.ro/newlib/studii-ces/CNPV­Lucrare_cos_consum_2013.pdf, p. 21). It is noteworthy that the minimum social pension remained below these levels, at only RON 704/month, as of September 2020. 13 See, for example: Frontul Comun pentru Dreptul al Locuire, https://bloculpentrulocuire.ro/2018/06/27/frontul-comun-pentru-dreptul­la-locuire/(Accessed: 15.09.2020) Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.eu/wp­content/uploads/2018/10/AIstopforcedevictions.pdf(Accessed: 15.09.2020), Council of Europe, Commissioner of Human Rights, https://rm.coe.int/the-human-rights-of-roma-and-travellers-in­europe/168079b434(Accessed: 15.09.2020). pension, while the level of the social pension is about 51 per cent of the average. At the moment this was being written (September 2020), the guaranteed minimum pension was RON 704, i.e. below the threshold of monetary poverty for a single person¹², and almost 950,000 pensioners were receiving that amount as of August 2020. Poverty rates among the elderly have remained higher than the EU average, and this also reflects large gender discrepancies in terms of old age poverty, ranging all the way up to 30.4% for women over 65 and 17.3% for men, as compared to 18.1% and 13.6%, respectively, in the EU on average(Eurostat dataset, September 2020). c. Social housing. There is an alarming deficit of public and social housing: only 1.5% of the housing stock is earmarked for state subsidised housing(including social housing), while more than 95% is in private hands. Responsibility for social housing is assigned to local governments, but these often lack the resources and know-how to expand availability and improve access. In 2017, 17% of the total population faced severe housing deprivation(FEANTSA). The National Housing Agency runs its own housing programmes, but it can scarcely cover this shortage (Teșliuc et al., 2015). Institutional discrimination and forced evictions are regularly reported by human rights watch groups¹³, affecting especially the low-income Roma and perpetuating their historical social and spatial marginalisation(Vincze and Hosu, 2014; Swinkles at.al., 2016; Teșliuc et al., 2016). d. Social protection for persons with disability. The Framework Law on the Social Protection of Persons with Disabilities dates back almost fifteen years(Law 448/2006), providing for benefits, services, tax deductions and subsidies, depending on the type and degree of disability. However, these provisions are scattered throughout various institutional administrations and the bureaucracy and red tape involved in enacting certain rights(Moroianu-Zlătescu, 2015) can be overwhelming, or even prohibitive. An analysis of social and health-care services for persons with disabilities would go beyond the purposes of this paper, nonetheless, it is important to highlight the need to expand public subsidies and to improve availability, accessibility and affordability(Tudose, 2018). With respect to social benefits as such, it should be mentioned that there are no transparent procedures for establishing the values of benefits according to an adjusted social reference indicator based on the evaluation of specific needs of persons with disabilities and the cost of resources required to cover these needs. Likewise, no minimum basket of goods for persons or families living with different types and degrees of disability has been used so far. 15