A Gauteng mother on R580 a month says the grant covers part of her household, not all of it

A Gauteng mother who has relied on the SASSA Child Support Grant for more than five years says the money covers only part of what her household needs each month, and that someone in her home went without food in the past month.

As The South African reported on 21 September, Thomfuthi Shabangu, who is in her late thirties, supports between three and five people on her income. The Child Support Grant pays R580 per child per month.

Shabangu told the outlet she rents privately and uses the grant across a mix of household expenses. By the end of most months, she said, nothing is left over. She also said she has tried to access government support beyond the grant she receives, and that the process did not work out in her favour.

Her work history is in construction and general labour. She says she is willing to relocate for the right job, and that suitable openings have been hard to find.

What R580 has to cover

The R580 figure is the monthly value of the Child Support Grant, the payment made for each qualifying child. It is not a household income and was never designed as one. Where a grant is the household’s main or only reliable money, the gap between the payment and the cost of rent, electricity, transport and food is the thing recipients manage daily.

That is the arithmetic Shabangu describes. It is also the arithmetic running in millions of homes. Roughly 18 million South Africans depend on SASSA grants each month, with Gauteng among the three provinces where most recipients live.

Unemployment sits above 32 percent. For a jobseeker with a construction and general labour background, that number is not abstract. It describes how many people are competing for the same openings, and how few of those openings are being created while investment stays weak.

The part of the story that worked

Shabangu rated SASSA’s communication with recipients as very good, and she receives her payments directly into her Nedbank account each month. That spares her the long queues faced by recipients who collect in person.

Asked what she would change about SASSA if she could, she did not hesitate. She would like to see the grant amount increased.

A direct bank payment and a recipient who can reach the agency are small things to record next to a household that ran out of food. They are also the parts of the system that did their job, and they are worth naming.

What a reader should take from it

The story of one household does not settle a policy question. It does show what the current settings produce. A grant that arrives reliably, into an account, on time, and still does not cover the month.

The gap is the issue. Closing it runs through the grant’s value, through the cost of the things the grant has to buy, and through whether the labour market can absorb people like Shabangu who are looking for work and willing to move for it.

Source: The South African, SASSA grant recipient reveals shocking reason behind her job-hunting struggle