The Polish government has unveiled plans for a new child benefit scheme. It hopes that the policy will provide an “incentive to have more children”, who will “create the future of our nation”.
Under the “Family Welfare Capital” scheme approved by the cabinet today, the state will from the start of next year pay families 12,000 zloty (€2,630) for each child after their firstborn between the age of 12 and 36 months. The benefit will be available to all families, regardless of income.
The child’s parents can decide whether the total is paid out in monthly instalments of 1,000 zloty over one year or 500 zloty over two years, reports Wprost. Those who already have a child within the eligible age range when the scheme is introduced can receive payments until the child reaches 36 months.
“A modern state, a welfare state, a state that is based on care for human dignity, must, above all, take care of families,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
The premier accused the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party’s opponents of “very often considering families, in particular those with several children, as something unusual…even pathological”. But “these are the families that make the greatest contribution to our society, creating the future of our nation”, he declared.
The government estimates that 410,000 children will be eligible for the benefit, if it is passed by parliament and the president. Another 110,000 children up to the age of three, but not covered by the main grant, will be eligible for support to attend nurseries or other child care.
“It will be an incentive to have more children and will create better conditions for their upbringing,” said Marlena Maląg, the family minister, quoted by Onet. She noted that Poland was “facing serious challenges related to unfavourable demographic trends”, which the government needed to counteract with natalist policies.
Since coming to power in 2015, the national-conservative PiS party has implemented a number of “pro-family” policies, most notably its flagship “500 Plus” child benefit (which will continue alongside the new programme). Such schemes, though popular, have so far failed in their aim of boosting Poland’s low birth rate.
The new Family Welfare Capital policy forms part of the government’s “Polish Deal” economic package that is intended to foster recovery from the pandemic, but is also seen as a political gambit by PiS ahead of the next elections.
The ruling party recently lost its parliamentary majority, after a junior coalition partner rebelled against the Polish Deal, arguing that it would hit millions of Poles with higher taxes. As such, the government would require support from parties or individual MPs outside its caucus to pass the new benefit programme.
If the bill gets through parliament (which isn't certain now, given the lost majority, but still seems likely), then payments would begin in January 2022 (supposedly applying to 410,000 children). Good timing if rumours are true that PiS will call early elections for spring 2022.
— Stanley Bill (@StanleySBill) August 17, 2021
Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
