Goodbye to austerity, long live social «investment»? From large numbers to small print, labor and social, of the general state budgets for a post-COVID-19 time

Abstract

Spain has not had a general state budget since 2018. The difficulty to achieve a parliamentary majority forced the coalition government to carry out two extensions of the previous budget. This, however, responded to a time dominated by austerity (although partially corrected by the change in the economic situation itself and by the need to reconcile diverse political interests and electoral reasons of the time). The new general budget for 2021 is presented as the most socially expansive («Keynesian») in our history. Increase all amounts for labor market and social protection policies. Now, the political-social ambition drops notably if we go from the macroeconomic figures to reading the concrete letter of the legal reforms that it promotes in labor relations and social protection.

The budget is not only born in a scenario of intense tension due to the expectation of a freezing of the interprofessional minimum wage, but also postpones the most relevant socio-labor changes that it proposes and that are needed, even with respect to the minimum vital income (they contribute 3.000 million € to finance it, but skips the necessary reforms to make it really useful –some inter-administrative management improvement includes RDL 35/2020, December 22–). For this reason, the global assessment, made according to the legal fine print, is less optimistic. This article gives a detailed account of the legal reforms, in the labor and social security sphere, contemplated by the State Budget Act for 2021, what it includes and what it delays.