Feijóo would fold Spain's minimum income into an 'activation income.' 911,274 households get it now

Spain's People's Party (PP) wants to replace the country's main anti-poverty benefit with a single "activation income." People able to work would have to sign a training and job-search agreement. Anyone who repeatedly turns down a suitable job without good reason would lose the aid step by step. Alberto Núñez Feijóo announced the plan on Tuesday, November 10, as he presented the PP's manifesto for the November 29 general election. The same morning, the Ministry of Inclusion published new figures for the benefit he wants to fold into the scheme, the ingreso mínimo vital (IMV). It now reaches 911,274 households and 2.78 million people. Forty percent of them are children.

The plan puts a clear choice before voters 19 days before the vote. Spain's minimum income could stay a stand-alone right for poor households, with light job-search rules. Or it could become a jobs program with graduated sanctions. The stakes are large. The benefit grew 17.9 percent in a year, and the country's fiscal watchdog says it still misses more than half of the households entitled to it.

What Feijóo proposed#

Feijóo set out the idea at the Espacio Torrelara in Madrid, where the PP launched a manifesto titled La Reconstrucción Nacional. According to Europa Press, he said a PP government would create "a renta de activación that brings together the ingreso mínimo vital and the various subsidies in a single path to employment." It would be designed with Spain's regional governments. It would also be "compatible with work from the first day, so that accepting a job always improves the family's situation."

The conditions are the core of the change. "Each beneficiary will sign a training and job-search agreement, with verifiable monitoring. Rejecting suitable jobs repeatedly and without justified cause will mean the graduated loss of the benefits," Feijóo said, according to the same report. Asked what the consequences would be, he told the audience it would mean "the loss of the benefits," El Mundo reported.

The PP's own summary of the speech, published on the party's website, sums up the measure with the line "Working has to pay more than not working." It pairs the idea with a promised "plan against fraudulent absenteeism." Feijóo also said people who cannot work should keep "the greatest protection." He argued that seriously ill workers on sick leave should be able to receive 100 percent of their salary base. In many cases, he said, they do not.

Three carve-outs were reported. According to the text quoted by El Mundo and by El Español, people unable to work because of incapacity or dependency would keep "specific protection." Child support would "remain a separate benefit." Public employment services would be judged "by the jobs they obtain."

What is still not defined#

Several details that determine how the scheme would work in practice were not given on Tuesday. Neither Feijóo nor the reported text said which other subsidies would be merged. They did not define a "suitable" job or say how many refusals would trigger a sanction. The size of each step in the "graduated" withdrawal is unknown. So is what the new income would pay compared with the IMV. The plan's dependence on regional governments, which run employment services and their own minimum-income schemes, also leaves open how a national benefit would be coordinated with the regions' own minimum-income schemes.

There is also a discrepancy over where the measure appears. El Mundo and El Español quoted it from the manifesto text. Europa Press reported that the activation income was not in the 249-measure document the PP gave journalists. That document has several blank slots the party says it will fill during the campaign. El Español put the count at eight blank measures in an 82-page document. Readers should treat the speech and the quoted text as the PP's stated intent until the full program is published with every measure filled in.

Who receives the IMV now#

The latest official figures come from the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, which published the October 2026 statistics of the National Social Security Institute (INSS) on November 10. In October the IMV was paid to 911,274 households containing 2,781,679 people. The average payment was €524.60 a month per household, and the month's payroll exceeded €748.2 million.

The benefit has grown quickly. The ministry reported 138,002 more active benefits than a year earlier, an increase of 17.9 percent, and 418,125 more beneficiaries, an increase of 17.7 percent.

0

250K

500K

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1M

Oct 2025773,272

Oct 2026911,274

Oct 2025Oct 2026

Source: Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, 10 Nov 2026

Show the numbers

Month	Households
Oct 2025	773,272
Oct 2026	911,274

The recipients' profile is central to the argument over conditions. According to the ministry, 1,120,877 beneficiaries are children and adolescents, 40.3 percent of the total; 621,711 households (68.2 percent) include minors; and 150,648 households are single-parent families. More than two thirds of the named recipients, 620,822 or 68.1 percent, are women. The ministry gives the average age of beneficiaries as 28.7 years, or 20.3 years when the named recipients are excluded, which reflects the number of children in covered households. A separate child supplement, the CAPI, went to 637,748 households in October.

Those numbers cut both ways in the debate. The PP scheme explicitly exempts people who cannot work and keeps child support separate. Its conditions would bite on working-age adults judged able to work. On the other side, the ministry's figures show that many IMV recipients are children. Their household income would fall if a parent were sanctioned. The PP's carve-out for child support only partly covers that risk, because the adult share of a household's income would still be at stake.

What the fiscal watchdog found#

The most detailed independent evidence on the IMV comes from the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF). It published its fifth and, for now, final annual opinion on the benefit in July 2026. Its findings support parts of each side's argument.

On coverage, AIReF estimated that at the end of 2025 the IMV reached 44.2 percent of households that met its income and asset tests. It found that 52 percent of entitled households had not applied. For the CAPI child supplement, 71 percent of potential beneficiaries did not apply, according to AIReF's own summary and the authority's press release as republished in full. El País reported that problems proving who lives in a household, and municipal registration, explained 66 percent of denials. The ministry disputed the coverage estimate, saying it measured only economic vulnerability and ignored non-economic requirements such as household composition and registration.

On work, the watchdog's findings are closer to the PP's concern. El País reported that AIReF's earlier studies found the IMV's design cut the probability of working by 12 percent on average. The figure was 20 percent for single-parent households and recipients under 30. The reason, AIReF said, is that a low-paid or unstable job could cost a household its benefit. A work incentive introduced in 2023 and reformed in March 2026 lets part of new earnings be ignored when the benefit is recalculated, but AIReF judged that it had little effect. The ministry rejected the idea that the benefit discourages work and said its reform raised the probability of obtaining a permanent contract by 3 percent.

On duration, AIReF found that 46 percent of recipient households were still on the IMV after 60 months. The share was 57 percent where the payment covered nearly all of a household's guaranteed income, and 34 percent where it covered less. In 2024, 51 percent of recipient households also got at least one other benefit, and 16 percent got two or more. The unemployment subsidy was the most common overlap, especially after age 52.

AIReF also compared the IMV with last-resort benefits elsewhere in Europe. It said Spain pairs a relatively high payment with below-average coverage and poverty reduction. Spain also uses older income data, a broad definition of the household and "less intense" job-search conditions.

What the evidence does and does not show#

The AIReF findings describe the current IMV. They do not test the PP's proposal, which has not been costed or modeled in public. Lower work rates among recipients are an estimated effect of the benefit's design. They are not proof that most recipients refuse jobs. And AIReF's main proposed fixes were a redesigned work incentive, automatic granting from official records and more recent income data, not sanctions. Equally, the high non-take-up rate shows the current system misses many eligible households, but it does not show whether a conditional scheme would reach more or fewer of them. Stronger conditionality could, in principle, push some entitled households away from applying, or could be paired with the automatic enrollment AIReF recommends; the PP has not said which.

How the parties line up#

The proposal fits the PP's broader economic pitch. According to El Español's summary, the manifesto also promises no income tax for minimum-wage workers. Workers aged 18 to 35 would get a 100 percent income tax rebate in their first taxpaying year. The PP also promises a VAT exemption on basic foods and a target of one million homes. Feijóo also promised an audit of all public spending in the first 100 days and said "each new rule must repeal three existing ones," El Mundo reported. The PSOE-led government has campaigned on the opposite emphasis, including Pedro Sánchez's pledge to write CPI-linked pension rises into the Constitution.

No formal response from the PSOE or from its coalition partner Sumar to the activation-income plan had been published by the time of writing. The government's case for the current benefit is in the ministry's own release. It says the IMV's compatibility with earned income and its work incentives "reinforce its role as a lever towards employment." It says the benefit's reach among families with children shows its "direct impact on reducing child poverty." The government also plans two extra cabinet meetings during the campaign, on November 13 and November 20, to approve more social and economic measures, El Mundo reported. On Tuesday it was due to approve a decree that extends protection for single-parent families, large low-income families and families of people with disabilities. It estimates that about three million people will benefit, according to RTVE.

The timing is pointed. The plan was announced the day before the 11 November general strike over housing and wages, called by Spain's two largest unions, and two days before the official campaign opens.

Where the parties sit on economic and social questions more broadly is shown in the 567politics spectrum chart below. The positions are dated editorial estimates, reviewed on November 5, 2026, not measured scores.

On the right, the PP's likeliest partner, Vox, has not set out its own position on the activation income in sources reviewed for this story. Feijóo has said he would prefer to govern alone but has not ruled out a deal; his stated limits are covered in an earlier report on his red lines.

The arguments, compared#

The case for the PP plan rests on three claims. A benefit should be a bridge to work, not a long-term income for people able to work. The current system lets the IMV overlap with other subsidies, which AIReF itself has criticized. And clear obligations, with sanctions for repeated refusals, are common in other European schemes. Supporters can point to AIReF's comparison, which describes Spain's labor conditionality as less intense than the European norm, and to its findings on long stays in the benefit.

The case against rests on other evidence from the same sources. More than half of entitled households already do not claim the benefit. Forty percent of the people it covers are children. And the paperwork hurdles that explain most denials, according to AIReF, could grow with an extra layer of monitoring. AIReF's preferred fix for the work disincentive is a better earnings allowance. The PP says its plan includes one, by making the new income compatible with work "from the first day."

A third view follows AIReF's own recommendations. On this view, the most urgent problems are automatic access for eligible households, a more current income test and a better fit with the unemployment subsidy. How strict the conditions should be is a second-order design choice, to be tested rather than assumed.

What to watch#

The PP has said it will reveal its remaining blank measures during the campaign, which begins on November 13. The full program, any costing of the activation income and any formal reply from the PSOE, Sumar or Vox will show how far the plan can be judged on evidence. The next monthly IMV statistics, due in December, will show whether the benefit's rapid growth continues through the election.

Differing perspectives

Should Spain replace its minimum living income with an activation income tied to training and job search?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Keep and strengthen the current IMV

  Who holds it: The PSOE-Sumar government through its Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration

  The government argues that the IMV already works as a lever towards employment, because it is compatible with earned income and includes work incentives. It points to 911,274 households and 2.78 million people covered in October 2026, more than 1.1 million of them children, and to the benefit's reach among single-parent families as evidence of its direct impact on child poverty. It says the benefit's recent growth shows it is reaching more vulnerable households.

  In their words: Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration ↗

• Redesign access and the work incentive first

  Who holds it: Spain's Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF)

  AIReF argues that the IMV has strengthened protection against poverty but has structural flaws. It says 52% of entitled households do not apply, that the benefit often overlaps with other aid such as the unemployment subsidy, and that Spain pairs an above-average payment with below-average coverage and poverty reduction. It proposes automatic granting from administrative records, more recent income data, a fully reworked work incentive and better coherence with other benefits.

  In their words: AIReF ↗

• Replace it with a conditional activation income

  Who holds it: The People's Party and its leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo

  The PP argues that working has to pay more than not working, so the minimum income and other subsidies should become one path to employment for people who can work. Each beneficiary would sign a training and job-search agreement, aid would stay compatible with a job from the first day, and repeated refusal of suitable work without good reason would bring a graduated loss of aid. People unable to work would keep specific protection.

  In their words: Partido Popular ↗

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