Social grants are the second-most important source of income for most SA households behind salaries and the main source of income for nearly a quarter of households nationally, shining the spotlight on the highs levels of unemployment and poverty gripping SA.
In its latest general household survey released on Thursday, Stats SA said social grants remained a vital safety net, particularly in the poorest provinces where most households depend on the state grants.
“The rollout of the special Covid-19 social relief of distress grant (SRD) in 2020 has played a central role in protecting individuals and households against the loss of income during this period,” the agency said in a statement.
Earlier in 2022, the government allocated a further R44bn in special social grants for another year to help soften the effects of the pandemic that left as many as 2-million people without jobs over the past two years.
The widespread joblessness resuscitated a long-running, controversial debate on whether SA should introduce a permanent basic income grant as one mechanism to alleviate poverty levels.
The special SRD grant is due to lapse in March 2023 and it remains unclear if the government will abandon it in the light of the heavy reliance on it by households.
About 60% of households in the Free State in 2021 received grants as their main source of income compared with salaries at 53.2%, the Stats SA's survey showed.
Eastern Cape was at 63.7% versus salaries, which stood at 46.2%, Limpopo was 65.7% compared with 49.7% and Mpumalanga stood at 66.2% versus 50.9%.
Due to the high uptake of the R350 a month grant, the percentage of individuals who accessed grants increased to 35.7% in 2021, the survey showed, while the percentage of households that received at least one grant increased to 50.6% in 2021. Individual access to the SRD grant was notably higher in metros at 25.2%.
The survey also showed the effect of Covid-19 on the early childhood development (ECD).
The percentage of children from birth to four years who remained at home with a parent, guardian, other adults or children increased from 57.8% in 2019 to 64.6% in 2021. During the same time, the percentage of children who attended grade R, preschool, nursery school, crèche, and edu-care centres decreased from 36.8% in 2019 to 28.5% in 2021.
The pandemic also negatively affected school attendance as the percentage of children aged five who did not attend an education institution increased from 10.9% in 2019 to 37.7% in 2020, before dropping off to 19.4% in 2021.
However, the percentage of individuals aged 20 years and older who did not have any education decreased from 11.4% in 2002 to 3.2% in 2021, while those with at least a grade 12 qualification increased from 30.5%to 50.5% over the same period.
The percentage of households with access to an improved source of water increased from 84.4% to 88.7% between 2002 and 2021. The increases were most notable in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Households connected to the electricity supply rose from 76.7% in 2002 to 89.3% in 2021.
Update: June 23 2022
This story has been updated with more information.
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