Table 13.

Social assistance programmes during COVID-19 pandemic, by country

Country	Programmes
Argentina	(1) Ingreso familiar de emergencia – transfer for households with a household head between 18 and 65 who works in domestic service, is an informal worker, is a monostributista social (categories A and B), or households receiving AUH or Progresar social programmes; household must not have a formal source of labour income or receive any pensions
Bahamas	(1) B$25 million for health care (2) B$5 million for food programmes (3) B$145 million for income support for job loss workers and self-employed (4) B$1.8 million to support to Family Islands (specifically to be used for any COVID-19–related expenditure)
Barbados	(1) Unemployment assistance for COVID-19 (2) Unemployment Programme for Self-Employed
Belize	(1) Providing short-term relief to employees affected by the crisis, especially those in the tourism sector (2) Additional support to the healthcare sector and the unemployed has been financed with loans from bilateral and multilateral creditors
Bolivia	(1) Direct relief payments to poorer households of about $US73 per child to households with children in public schools and students in private schools (2) Programme (Canasta Familiar) to make direct payments for food to 1.5 million families ($US58 per family) (3) Payments to electric bills for 3 months for the consumers with lower consumption and pay 50% of the potable water and gas for all households (4) The latest transfer to households (Bono Contra el Hambre) became available starting on December 2020. It provides a one-off transfer of about $146 for all eligible individuals
Brazil	(1) Transfer for households with individuals whose main source of income comes from being informal workers or self-employed; unemployed; or microentrepreneurs; these households must not be beneficiaries of Bolsa Familia; their total income must not be more than R$3135 or total per capita income above R$522.5
Chile	(1) Ingreso Familiar de Emergencia — transfer for households whose source of income is mainly from informal sources. The amount depends on the number of people in the household and decreases according to the percentage of income that is formal; pensioners from Pension Solidaria de la Vejez receive a smaller amount of aid (2) Bono de Emergencia COVID 19 — this transfer aims at households with individuals receiving Subsidio Familiar (SUF), households in the Sistema de Seguridades y Oportunidades database, households who belong to the 60% most vulnerable according to the Registro Social de Hogares database and households who do not have a formal income through employment or pension and do not have any SUF beneficiaries
Colombia	(1) Payments to health providers for ICU availability (2) Creation of a National Tracking and Contact Center (3) A one-off bonus for health workers (4) Delayed utility payments for poor and middle-income households (5) Transfers for vulnerable groups, and additional benefits for recently unemployed workers
Costa Rica	(1) A monthly subsidy of ¢125,000 (US$205) for 3 months to about 375 thousand households economically affected by the crisis with a monthly income of less than ¢750,000 (US$1230) prior to COVID-19 (2) An increase in public health spending, including construction of a specialized hospital for COVID-19 treatment and purchase of COVID-19 vaccines
Dominican Republic	(1) The Quédate en Casa programme, subsidizing the most vulnerable households, including informal workers (2) Coverage under the existing programme Comer es Primero, paying RD$5000 (roughly US$90) per month (3) 452,817 families receive additional transfers of RD$2000 (about US$36) per month (4) Employee Solidarity Assistance Fund, benefits about 754,000 families of formal workers who were laid off with a monthly transfer up to 70% of last formal wages (minimum of RD$5000, RD$8104 on average) (5) A programme Pati was introduced to support independent workers, providing RD$5000 (about US$90) a month to each beneficiary with an additional allowance made available for healthcare workers, the military and police officers, amounting to RD$2.4 billion
Ecuador	(1) Transfer for affiliates to the unpaid work regime or self-employed; or affiliates to the Seguro Social Campesino, with income lower than US$400 and who are not registered to the contributive social security and are not registered as dependents; individuals must not be beneficiaries of any other programmes of the government (2) Transfer for people not included in the previous subgroup whose income is lower than $400 and are below the poverty line
El Salvador	(1) Transfer for informal employees and self-employed workers with low social economic resources
Guatemala	(1) Electricity subsidies (2) Fostering low-income housing
Jamaica	(1) Temporary cash transfer to individuals for whom loss of employment can be verified since March 10 (2) Grants targeted at the most vulnerable segments of society
Mexico	(1) The government is providing subsidized unemployment insurance for 3 months to workers that hold a mortgage with the Housing Institute (5.9 billion pesos) (2) Additional resources are allocated to social spending related to infrastructure, security, education, urban improvement and other areas (62 billion pesos)
Nicaragua	(1) Provision of food packages among vulnerable families
Paraguay	(1) Supporting vulnerable population
Peru	(1) Bono Independiente — transfer for households with main income source coming from self-employment and not in poverty; households cannot be beneficiaries of the Juntos, Pension 65, or Contigo programmes; none of the household members can be registered as dependent workers of the public or private sector; household members cannot have income over PEN$1200 and cannot be part of any local or central government
Uruguay	(1) Transfer for food purchases for informal and self-employed workers, with no other social programme benefits and who do not have social security
Venezuela	NA

Source: Taken from Busso et al. (2020) and complemented with IMF-COVID tracker and other sources