PKH, Biological Child of Welfare State

“The Indonesian people have pledged themselves to work towards a better world, a world free from conflict and tension, a world where children can grow up proud and free, a world where justice and prosperity apply to everyone. Has a nation rejected such a promise? " - (Ir. H. Soekarno)

When socialism has failed to fulfill its utopian goal of building prosperity, and ends up becoming the hegemony of the state over its people, capitalism persists as a way out by many nations, finally moving to crush the weak, ideas to soften capitalism's arrogance to make it more humane (Compassionate Capitalism) emerge. In the 18th to early 19th centuries, academics and politicians grappled with the Concept of the Welfare State as a middle ground at a time when the Great Depression swept across the globe.

Prof. Kranenburg, the originator of the Welfare State Theory, states that the state must actively strive for welfare, act fairly, which can be felt by all people equally and in a balanced manner. Meanwhile, Spicker said the Welfare State is a national welfare system that gives a bigger role to the state to allocate a portion of public funds to ensure the fulfillment of the basic needs of its citizens. Many other academics have parsed the definition of a Welfare State, which has the aim of being the political will of the state to utilize resources for the welfare of the people.
        
Referring to the Welfare State Concept, Scandinavian European countries, such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland practice an equitable and institutionalized model of providing social security, the state even spends up to 60% of total state expenditure on social security budgets. In other European countries, such as Germany and Austria, the scheme is the same, but involves the government, private sector and workers to contribute to social security schemes. Another thing in the countries of America or Australia, large budgets for social security are prioritized for the poor, disabled, homeless or unemployed. The collective life of a state in Islamic Sharia is also formed as a postulate of the Welfare State that the state encourages people based on God's law to surrender 2.5% of their assets which are used for the distribution of prosperity to all needy and poor people or other segments of society who are in need with the provision of divine law.

Constitutionally, the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia can be said to be designed as a Welfare State. This can be seen in a series of articles in the Basic Law (UUD), starting from articles 27, 28, 31, 33, and article 34 of the 1945 Constitution. Then, the derivative of the constitution is in the form of Law (UU), such as Law no. 13 of 1998, Law no. 40 of 2004, Law no. 11 of 2009, Law no. 13 of 2011, Law no. 8 of 2016. There are also Government Regulations (PP), such as PP. 39 of 2012, Presidential Decree No. 15 of 2010, and beyond. This constitutional mandate has been followed up, one of which is the implementation of the national policy of the Family Hope Program (PKH), which was launched exactly 12 years ago, and has played a significant role since 2014 to date, in efforts to reduce the burden on family expenses, changes in participant behavior in accessing services. health, education and social welfare so as to produce a healthier and smarter generation. All goals boil down to breaking the chain of poverty between generations.

Based on the description above, personally and as the Sulawesi Regional PKH Coordinator, convey some concise and simple arguments why this program deserves to be continued by the government as the national policy regulator, with the following considerations:

1. As explained above, PKH was born from the womb of the constitution, similar to the concept of a welfare state implemented in many democratic countries.

2. PKH is a large home for 10 million beneficiary families (KPM), who have felt a direct positive impact on themselves and all members of the beneficiary family of this social assistance, and have influenced the rotation of the local economy.

3. PKH is a field for actualizing the spirit of Agent of Social Control and Agent of Change, and a field for knowledge transformation and social network development for the people for PKH HR recruited from educated circles in this country.

4. The sustainability of PKH covers the risk of increasing open unemployment among educated circles, because PKH is Practical Employment for 40,000 PKH HR, most of whom have families and support their family members.

5. The sustainability of PKH will close the collective unrest of citizens, because state revenue has been used for the prosperity of the people (KPM PKH and PKH HR, as well as other beneficiaries of Social Welfare).

6. From a political perspective, PKH plays an active role in building social stability, which is directly correlated with order and security, which indirectly plays a role in reducing the crime rate and social conflict due to poverty.

7. From the aspect of human development, PKH directly contributed to increasing the gross enrollment rate of students, increasing awareness of the use of health facility services, and increasing the number of small and medium entrepreneur activists.

8. PKH has a direct impact on the narrowing of the income gap between income groups, has a direct impact on the historic achievement of reducing the poverty rate to 1 (one) digit, and is the most significant aspect in increasing the citizen's happiness index.

9. PKH becomes a leadership capacity building laboratory for PKH HR personnel from all levels of position.

10. PKH has become an international reference in the practice of Conditional Cash Transfers with the Non-Cash Social Assistance distribution mechanism as a practice of inclusive financial policies.

Thus, this brief argument is written, hopefully it will be useful and become a treasury of formulations in decision making by the leaders of our beloved country regarding the sustainability of PKH.