The months-old Mitsotakis government on Thursday announced specific criteria for allocation of its version of a "social dividend", continuing the end-of-year one-off welfare payment begun by its leftist predecessor, and funded by an excess in the annual and creditor-mandated primary budget surplus, currently at 3.5 percent of GDP. The relevant finance minister, Christos Staikouras, said the bonus will again be doled out to "sensitive social groups", citing a figure of 700 euros each to roughly 250,000 households, which correspond to 953,000 people. Conversely, as opposed to the previous Tsipras government, which last doled out a similar "social dividend" only weeks before the May 2019 European Parliament election rather at the end of the year, the new center-right government's "Christmas bonus" is cut back to 175 million euros. Staikouras identified the four main categories of households eligible for the bonus as families with four or more children, but with an annual gross income not exceeding 20,000 euros; a household with one parent registered as being long-term unemployed and at least one dependent, but with an annual income ceiling of 15,000 euros; a household with two unemployed parents, and at least one dependent, but with an annual income ceiling of 15,000 euros; and finally, households with one or more dependents with a disability, up to the age of 24. Let's block ads! (Why?)