Benefits for the self-employed are close to being extended until May

The Government and the organizations representing self-employed workers are close to an agreement to extend the current benefit for the ‘cessation of activity’ until May 31st. The only parts that need final confirmation are the modifications to articles 13 and 14 of the previous royal decree that enabled this benefit dependant on the percentage of loss of income.

The president of the National Federation of Associations of Self-Employed Workers (ATA), Lorenzo Amor, confirmed that the Government is willing to eliminate some of the obstacles that this benefit had. He said that José Luis Escrivá, the Minister of Social Security, has accepted that the extraordinary benefit can be accessed without having received it since the start of the pandemic, or that the situation for the seasonal self-employed is improved.

However, for ATA, he said it is essential to take into account that, “in the middle of the third wave, the self-employed have already had ten months of psychological and financial exhaustion, living with many restrictions”.

"The self-employed are getting poorer," Amor stressed, after making it clear that "it is not logical that self-employed workers have to contribute 100% of their social security, when their turnover barely reaches 50%.”

From his point of view, “the Government is discriminating against the self-employed, and is leaving them as second-class citizens, since it is giving priority to workers and companies that are allowed to have activity exemptions for any situation, either due to capacity or schedule limitations.”

Amor said that the Government are preparing a new document in which the obligation to have been a beneficiary of the benefit previously will be eliminated (so if you haven’t received it before you will be able to apply), the situation of seasonal self-employed workers is to be improved, and the threshold of loss of income will be reduced from 75 % to receive the benefit.

“Every day the solvency of companies and freelancers is getting worse. Before we had a liquidity problem in May and June, but now we have a solvency problem”, the ATA president added.

The president of the Union of Professionals and Self-Employed Workers (UPTA), Eduardo Abad, is also pleased that an agreement is close, but says some of the fundamental issues are still pending, and urges that the threshold of losses is not above 50% to continue receiving 70% of the contribution base.

“This is good news and we are close to a final agreement. The development of the content of this new extension must be refined a bit, but we can say that it is aimed and oriented so that, with the efforts of the Administration and organizations, we can take forward this aid, which is vital for thousands of autonomos”, said Abad.

The new royal decree that will extend the benefit for cessation of activity should be approved next Tuesday, January 26th, in the Council of Ministers session in parliament.