Self-defeating targeting : the implementation of the Minimum Living Income in Spain

This article presents an analytical framework for studying implementation failure in minimum income programs targeted against poverty and applies it to a case study focused on the recent introduction in Spain of the first national minimum income programme, the Minimum Living Income (MLI). The framework combines two criteria (the type of agent potentially triggering failure, and the type of administrative challenge) to produce four types of implementation problems in targeted minimum income schemes: identification failure, administrative incapacity, nontake-up, and overpayments. We apply this framework in the case of MLI by conducting an exhaustive review of empirical research on its implementation problems. This evidence suggests that the special political circumstances in which the MLI was approved, some features of its design, and its insertion into a complex institutional landscape of regional minimum incomes, explain part of these problems. We conclude with some final remarks and recommendations.