Research Insights: How Well Could Emergency Transfer Programs Protect Informal and Vulnerable Households against Negative Effects of the Covid-19 Lockdowns?

Data on 33 emergency transfer programs implemented across 10 Latin American and Caribbean countries in response to the Covid-19 pandemic shows substantial variation in proposed coverage. Coverages and replacement rates are in general high among the poorest households that are in the first quintile of the earnings distribution, ranging from 54 percent in Ecuador to 100 percent in Brazil and Peru. The second and third quintiles show very different results, with replacement rates falling considerably in all cases except Brazil. For most households in these quintiles, emergency transfers compensated less than 25 percent of labor monetary income.