The government refused aid to 45,357 self-employed workers who stopped working during the pandemic. The files were rejected because they did not meet legal requirements or because their economic activity has not been suspended due to the health emergency, the Executive confirmed.
Due to the coronavirus crisis, the Spanish government has temporarily distributed aid to almost 1.5 million self-employed workers who have closed their businesses, with an expense of 5.237 million between extraordinary benefits and exemptions from social contributions.
To benefit from these resources, you had to be registered with Social Security or up to date with payment of contributions and the activity had to be suspended due to the health crisis.
In a parliamentary response to several questions from a group of PP deputies, the Executive confirms that once the examination and verification of compliance with the requirements was carried out, 45,357 benefits were refused, which They represent 3.05% provisional recognitions carried out by the Mutual Collaborators of Social Security.
Previous estimates
The figure proposed in the response is far from that estimated by the Court of Auditors, which, in a report published in April, indicated that up to 281,000 self-employed workers could have received cessation aid without meeting the conditions required.
The monitoring institution indicated that at least 125,000 self-employed workers were not registered with Social Security or up to date with payment of their contributions at the time of the request for aid; while 156,000 other people requested this benefit without their activity being suspended due to the pandemic.
