SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 17. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Deputy Minister of the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands, Antonio Olivera, described this Thursday as “worrying” the increase in poverty in the Canary Islands, although it is “very far” from the rates that were recorded after the 2008 financial crisis.
Asked at the press conference after the Governing Council about the Caritas report, which places 425,000 people in severe poverty, he commented that it is a “structural problem” in the Canary Islands, and although there were “worse data” in the previous crisis , “it rains it pours” given that society had not yet recovered from the financial crisis and even less from that of Covid-19.
Olivera has detailed that “poverty has many faces” and even working “does not take people away” from poverty, which is why he has supported the taking of economic and social protection measures to deal with it.
In this sense, he highlighted that compared to 2019, when the ‘Pacto de las Flores’ began, social protection has almost quintupled to reach 10,337 families covered by the PCI and 19,700 by the Minimum Vital Income.
He has pointed out that it is “insufficient” but much more than two and a half years ago and understands that poverty “is a risk that is there because employment does not completely solve it”, hence public action is “key” to ” give people a decent life.
For this reason, he has indicated that the citizen income law, which is in parliamentary process, will help.
