The Knesset passed on Monday a law to form a national authority to fight poverty, whose purpose is to “reduce poverty, prevent its deepening, and rescue people from poverty, all with the goal of advancing the right of every person for an honorable existence,” according to its wording.
The law will come into effect in six months. Welfare and Social Affairs Minister Ya’acov Margi (Shas) said he will begin staff work immediately in order for the directorate to be operational by then. The budget for the formation stage is NIS 10 million and will come from the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry’s budget. Shas pledged to provide more funding during 2025 from its coalition funds, if necessary.
The law received multipartisan backing from MKs in Shas, The Democrats, and Hadash-Ta’al.
According to the bill, the authority will form a multiyear national plan and annual plans to combat poverty and prevent it; supervise their implementation; submit opinions on legislative or regulatory impacts related to combating poverty to the Knesset; establish and manage a national center for information and research on poverty; advise, assist, and coordinate between government ministries and local authorities; and aid in food distribution.
According to the law, the welfare and social affairs minister will appoint a council consisting of 29 members to set the authority’s policy and work plans. The council will include representatives from various government ministries as well as public representatives with knowledge and experience in combating poverty.
The proposal also includes provisions concerning the authority’s director, its employees, and the establishment of a national center for information and research.
“This is a significant achievement in the fight for social justice,” one of the bill’s main sponsors, Hadash-Ta’al MK Aida Touma-Sliman said after the bill passed into law.
“There were attempts to crush the law and eliminate essential mechanisms – but I stood my ground. We succeeded in preserving the independence of the National Council for Food Security and passed a law that obligates the state to take responsibility. Poverty is not a fate – it is the result of policy, and now it will have a planned, binding, and national response,” Touma-Sliman said.
She added, “While the government is cutting welfare budgets and deepening disparities by funding destructive wars, we managed to pass a law that justly supports the poor and the disadvantaged – not as those in need of charity, but as individuals with the right to live in dignity.”
'Preventing poverty of groups'
Critics argued during the bill’s legislative process that it would effectively replace a different initiative by Shas to spend millions of shekels on food stamps, which was blocked by legal advisers since it gave precedence to haredi (ultra-Orthodox) civilians.
Critics suspected that the authority would be a way to bypass the legal barriers. However, the measures that would have benefited haredi civilians over others were dropped during the process, a spokesperson for Touma-Sliman explained.
For example, the law added to a provision that included a reference to “preventing poverty of groups” the words “near the poverty line,” and it also removed a provision that included the criterion “whether they are eligible for funding from other sources or not.”
