The impact of social aid on poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic: Empirical evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

The primary goal of this study is to investigate the impact of social aid expenditures on the proportion of poor people in Indonesian provinces, as well as the additional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty levels, with a particular emphasis on the interaction between social assistance spending and the pandemic’s effects. Focusing on 34 provincial governments in Indonesia from 2004 to 2022, the data were analyzed using the two-step GMM system. The results of this study indicate that social aid expenditures negatively and significantly impact the proportion of Indonesia’s population living in poverty. This demonstrates that a rise in social aid expenditures lowers Indonesia’s proportion of the impoverished population. The observed negative impact suggests a real decrease in the poverty rate as social aid expenditures rise. In the meantime, this study discovers a positive and noteworthy impact of the COVID-19 variable. This indicates that compared to the time prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a larger percentage of Indonesians lived in poverty during the pandemic. Furthermore, social aid expenditures were unable to reduce the number of poor people in Indonesia during the COVID-19 period.