Tracking Social Protection Responses to Inflation: Living Paper V. 5

Ugo Gentilini, Mohamed Bubaker Alsafi Almenfi, Hrishikesh Tirumala Madabushi Matam I, Yuko Okamura, Emilio Raul Urteaga, Giorgia Valleriani, Jimmy Vulembera Muhindo, Sheraz Aziz and Margret Chu

No 183577, Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes from The World Bank

Abstract: Between December 2022 and May 2023, the number of social protection and other related measuresannounced or implemented in response to inflation rose by about 31 percent. The latest tally includes 1,333 responsesacross 178 economies. Overall, subsidies claim 33 percent of such measures and take four main forms (fuel, food,fertilizers, and various fee subsidies). Social assistance accounts for 31 percent of responses, 77 percent of which isprovided in the form of cash transfers. Tax measures represent 19 percent of the global responses, and trade,active labor market policies and social insurance claim a share of 6 percent each. Based on planned coverage data from116 economies, social protection programs intend to cover 1.94 billion people or about 25 percent of the world’spopulation. But so far, actual coverage shows that 303.5 million individuals, or about 4 percent of the globalpopulation, were reached (based on data from 36 economies). Next, based on expenditure data from 561 programs across 143economies, a total of 1.01 trillion dollars is being invested in social protection responses. This involves anaverage country spending of 1.06 percent of GDP. The average size of both social assistance and subsidy transfersrepresents slightly over a quarter (i.e., 27 percent) of the daily median income, while their average initial duration is7.3 months. Almost one-fifth of the responses to inflation have been extended, and the average duration of suchextensions is 8.5 months. Over half of social assistance transfers are new (56 percent) and are provided on a one-offbasis (47 percent).

Date: 2023-06-01
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