Tracking Global Social Protection Responses to Inflation - Living Paper v. 5

Between December 2022 and May 2023, the number of social protection and other related measuresannounced or implemented in response to inflation rose by about 31 percent. The latest tally includes 1,333 responsesacross 178 economies. Overall, subsidies claim 33 percent of such measures and take four main forms (fuel, food,fertilizers, and various fee subsidies). Social assistance accounts for 31 percent of responses, 77 percent of which isprovided in the form of cash transfers. Tax measures represent 19 percent of the global responses, and trade,active labor market policies and social insurance claim a share of 6 percent each. Based on planned coverage data from116 economies, social protection programs intend to cover1.94 billion people or about 25 percent of the world’s population. But so far, actual coverage shows that 303.5million individuals, or about 4 percent of the global population, were reached (based on data from 36 economies).Next, based on expenditure data from 561 programs across 143 economies, a total of 1.01 trillion dollars is beinginvested in social protection responses. This involves an average country spending of 1.06 percent of gross domesticproduct (GDP). The average size of both social assistance and subsidy transfers represents slightly over a quarter(i.e., 27 percent) of the daily median income, while their average initial duration is 7.3 months. Almost one-fifth ofthe responses to inflation have been extended, and the average duration of such extensions is 8.5 months. Over halfof social assistance transfers are new (56 percent) and are provided on a one-off basis (47 percent).