In an attempt to minimise the negative economic impacts of COVID‐19 on vulnerable households the South African government allocated R50 billion in additional social assistance spending. The cash transfer package included a temporary increase in existing grants and introduced a new “Covid grant.” We assess the chosen package and compare it with an initial proposal to increase the Child Support Grant (CSG). Coverage, cost and welfare effects are calculated to measure the relative impacts in each case. We find that while a significant increase in the CSG delivers resources most progressively, the addition of the COVID‐19 grant may potentially reach a much larger group of otherwise uncovered, vulnerable individuals. Critically, this extended coverage comes at a cost to the poorest households, via additional transfers to the upper income deciles. However, we identify several categories of vulnerable household groups which suggests that the workers most negatively affected by the pandemic are not necessarily those in the poorest households. The paper emphasises that social assistance to mitigate the consequences of COVID‐19 should not be viewed necessarily as a standard poverty reduction exercise, but rather as an attempt to mitigate COVID‐19‐related income shocks for the vulnerable who were most negatively affected by the pandemic.

中文翻译：

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南非在COVID-19流行中的社会救助：一项政策评估

为了尽量减少COVID-19对脆弱家庭的负面经济影响，南非政府分配了500亿兰特的额外社会援助支出。现金转移计划包括暂时增加现有赠款，并引入了新的“ Covid赠款”。我们评估所选的方案，并将其与增加儿童抚养补助金（CSG）的初步建议进行比较。计算承保范围，成本和福利影响以衡量每种情况下的相对影响。我们发现，虽然CSG的显着增加以最渐进的方式提供了资源，但增加COVID-19补助金可能会覆盖更多的人群，这些人群原本没有被发现，却很脆弱。至关重要的是，扩大覆盖范围会给最贫穷的家庭带来损失，这是通过向高收入阶层提供额外的转移支付来实现的。但是，我们确定了几类脆弱的家庭群体，这表明受到大流行影响最大的工人不一定是最贫困家庭的工人。该文件强调，减轻COVID-19后果的社会援助不应被视为标准的减贫活动，而应是减轻受COVID-19负面影响最大的脆弱人群的COVID-19相关收入冲击的尝试。大流行病。