Breadth and sufficiency of Cash Transfer Responses in Ten Latin American Countries during the First 12 Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Given the devastating health and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America, social protection responses have been crucial for safeguarding access to basic needs among vulnerable households. Yet policy design has varied widely across countries. In this working paper, we develop comparative measures to assess the breadth and sufficiency of the cash transfer responses of ten Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay) during the first twelve months of the pandemic, from April 2020 to March 2021. We assess it for two particularly vulnerable groups: children in existing cash transfer programs, and informal workers and households in new emergency programs. Four broad types of responses emerge, detailed in Figures 1-4: the first group -Brazil and Chile- provided benefits with relatively high breadth and sufficiency. The second group -Argentina, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Peru and Bolivia- is more heterogeneous, but shares the characteristics of high breadth of benefits. Sufficiency of benefits varies from medium to low sufficiency, often with differences between programs. The third group - Colombia and Ecuador- is characterized both by low breadth and low sufficiency of benefits. The fourth type of response is a non-response, ie., no national-level pandemic cash transfer response, and comprises Mexico.