‘More families’ to become eligible for child benefit

More families will become eligible for the child benefit after planned changes to means-testing, the deputy minister for social welfare said on Tuesday. Hailing the tabling of the relevant bill as “a great day”, Tina Pavlou said that the amendments would bring about an increase in the child benefit between 5 to 10 per cent. The deputy minister stated she was “proud” of the amended legislation, as an additional 2,000 families and 2,800 children would benefit. The key change relates to eligibility according to family income. The criteria have been loosened. In addition, previously whenever a family saw a small increase in their income, authorities would cut off the child benefit entirely. Now, with the changes, this will no longer be the case. Taking questions from media, Pavlou said the amount of the child benefit depends on the category a family is placed in. The total cost to the government would come to €12.5 million. Asked whether the changes should be seen as part of measures to tackle low birth rates, the deputy minister said no. She said that studies carried out in the EU have shown that benefits policies have not impacted demographics. In addition, countries like Canada and Norway have found that, rather, free education and parent counseling are what help boost birth rates. Regardless, Pavlou added, the government is committed to supporting families with children. Commenting on the government bill, Akel MP Giorgos Koukoumas opined that it is not really impactful. Child benefits generally remain very low, while an increase of 10 per cent – for low-income families – cannot “even cover half of the price increases in essential goods over the past few years”. The MP said that Cyprus currently spends less than 1 per cent of GDP “on the family and on the child” – less than half of the EU average. “The government is providing support at a trickle,” he remarked. Moreover, according to Koukoumas the proposed changes exclude thousands of families with a single child. Although the government bill does somewhat improve the situation, it falls well short of the pre-election pledges made by then-presidential candidate Nikos Christodoulides, he said.