The Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, also commonly known as the R350 grant, has proven to be a lifeline for millions of South Africa's most vulnerable people and is considered to be a necessity for survival.
In a recent Parliamentary Committee Meeting, it has been revealed that 10% of the grant's recipients were able to move on to employment after some time. This news is welcomed, especially because of South Africa's shocking unemployment rate.
This move has resulted in a decline in the number of beneficiaries that are receiving grants, as they are now in stable employment and are hopefully earning a bit more than R350 per month.
It was also recently recorded that South Africa has seen a slight decrease in the number of people unemployed.
The official unemployment rate decreased by 0.2% of a percentage point from 32.9% in the third quarter of 2022 to 32.7% in the fourth quarter of 2022. This meant that there were about 169,000 more people in the fourth quarter of 2022 than in the previous quarter, as revealed by Stats SA.
The Department of Social Development (DSD) says it is working on linking the SRD grant to job opportunities, but requires additional assistance.
"We are trying to link the grant beneficiaries to job opportunities, however we require other departments to come on board and assist in absorbing these beneficiaries," said Dr. Maureen Mogotsi, Acting Chief Director of Social Assistance.
Research has also indicated that SRD grant beneficiaries are actually more likely to search for a job, than if they didn't receive the grant. This dispels a common assumption that the distribution of social grants discourages work.
The research, which was conducted by Timothy Köhler and Haroon Bhorat, indicates that the SRD grant increased the probability of job searches among beneficiaries by 25 percentage points, in comparison to non-beneficiaries.
Research also indicates that the SRD grant reduced poverty by 5.3% amongst the poorest households, and household income inequality by 1.3% - 6.3% depending on the measure.
At the Committee Meeting, it was also announced that some people who apply for the SRD grant are in fact earning more than R350, not below it.
One condition of the SRD grant, in order to qualify for the money, is that applicants must not be earning above the stipulated income threshold. Although an increase of this threshold, going from R350 to R624, has been in talks for some time now, it is not yet in full effect.
The people who are applying for the SRD grant, yet are earning more than R350, take away the chance of monetary assistance from those living on less than R350, and who may need it a bit more.
With the sky-high increases in inflation and the cost of living ,as well as the (still) steep unemployment rate, the SRD grant has provided its recipients with some assistance as they battle the challenges of extreme poverty.
The grant was first introduced in 2020 by President Cyril Ramaphosa, initially as a temporary source of relief from the devastating impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, but has since been extended, and is now distributed on a monthly basis.
