The Government raises the salary limit to 2,250 euros per month to be able to work and collect unemployment at the same time
The Government has amended its initial proposal so that unemployed people who enter a new full-time job can combine their benefit with their occupation during the first months. A first draft of the decree established that only those who access jobs with gross monthly salaries of a maximum of 225% of the Iprem (1,350 euros in 2024) could benefit from this possibility. However, the final decree that was published this Wednesday in the BOE raises that limit to 375% of the Iprem. That is to say, The maximum threshold is now 2,250 euros per month, 900 more than in the previous formulation that had raised by the Ministry of Labor.
This measure is part of the reform of the unemployment benefits system —the aid received by the unemployed who have already exhausted their contributory benefit— which the Government approved on Tuesday in the Council of Ministers. The unions had already warned when they agreed on the reform with Yolanda Díaz, that this point still lent itself to introducing changes. And finally, this is what happened.
The extension of the salary threshold will allow substantially increase the universe of potential beneficiaries who could benefit from this aid. According to tax statistics, 63% of the country’s employees had a salary of less than 2,268 euros gross per month in 2022 (the salary centile most similar to the 2,250 euros limit established by the Government). We are talking about about 8.6 million people. With the previous formulation, only 14% of employed workers theoretically met this requirement (1.9 million).
However, it is worth introducing two important nuances to this estimate. First of all, Tax sources only take into account taxpayers who file personal income tax returns.so there are low-income people who are not required to declare that they would meet the requirements, but they do not appear in this statistic.
Combine from month 10 of unemployment
However, this has not been the only modification that has been included in the final text. Government has also reduced the months of unemployment that must have been consumed previously to be able to access the so-called “employment support supplement”, the salary concept that the unemployed who take up a new job and want to combine it with the aid will receive on the payroll.
With the new formulation, It will be enough for the unemployed person to have consumed nine months of their benefit to be able to make them compatible and not twelve, as established in the previous draft to which this newspaper had access. In this way, the aid that unemployed people who choose to combine their benefit with employment will receive will amount to 480 euros per month for the first six months. Subsequently, it will decrease to 360 euros in months seven and eight of employment; It will fall to 240 in months nine, ten and eleven and will be reduced to 180 euros in the final quarter.
What does remain is the obligation to have worked for at least three years and six months, long enough to generate the right to a twelve-month unemployment benefit. However, those who prove this requirement will be able to begin combining unemployment and work in the ninth month of their benefit and will not have to wait until the thirteenth, as previously anticipated. Likewise, the possibility of combining work and unemployment will not begin to apply until April 1 of next year.
