Employees who earn less than IDR5 million (US$342.82) per month were supposed to have received the first of four monthly IDR600K stimulus checks from the government today, but there has been a slight delay due to administrative issues.
Of the 15.7 million workers (previously reported as 13.8 million) registered with the Workers Social Security Agency (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan) and are eligible for the aid, the Manpower Ministry says that it’s still in the process of validating the data of the first batch of 2.5 million workers at this point.
“We need, at the latest, four days to validate the data of 2.5 million people. We apologize. Diligence is required for this,” Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah said in a press conference yesterday.
Ida added that it’s likely that the aid will be wired directly to the recipients in batches of 2.5 million workers each week, meaning that all 15.7 million should receive their first check by the end of September.
Eligible workers are entitled to four IDR600K checks each month until the end of the year. The government’s initial plan was to wire the money in two bi-monthly stages.
Nationally, the average monthly wage in Indonesia, according to 2019 data from the Indonesian Statistics Agency (BPS), is IDR2.83 million. College graduates, meanwhile, earn an average of IDR4.59 million per month.
The government hopes the stimulus package will boost spending and revive Indonesia’s ailing economy, which contracted for the first time since the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis more than 20 years ago. BPS previously announced that Indonesia’s GDP contracted 5.32 percent in the second quarter of 2020 — much deeper than the government’s estimate of 4.3 percent — amid the pandemic, putting Indonesia on course toward a recession.
