Renta básica universal para mitigar la pobreza y la desigualdad en el Ecuador.

Abstract

The pandemic caused by the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus brought with it a serious economic and social crisis for Ecuadorian families, especially affecting the most vulnerable people. Among the main consequences were an increase in poverty, inequality, informality and unemployment. To address these problems, international organizations and academics are proposing the adoption of a monetary income to meet people's basic needs. The Universal Basic Income, which is a monetary income granted periodically and unconditionally to each inhabitant of a country, appears as an alternative to mitigate the effects of the crisis. In this context, this research evaluates the impact that would be obtained on poverty and extreme income poverty rates with the implementation of a Universal Basic Income policy for Ecuador. For this purpose, a static microsimulation model was used, proposing six different scenarios: three at the individual level and three at the household level. The result of a minimum item for a partial basic income is $42.96 dollars. The largest reduction would be obtained in a scenario at the individual level that considers 100 % of people in poverty and extreme poverty, which would give a poverty and extreme poverty rate of 13.1 % and 3.4 % respectively, and a Gini coefficient of 0.50 with a cost of approximately $ 2.75 billion dollars per year.