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ANALYZING THE BLT POLICY’S EFFECTS DURING THE

PANDEMIC ERA: AN ISLAMIC ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE STUDY

Khairil Amin

, Azhari Akmal Tarigan

compensation for cash, food, health insurance, and education with a target of three levels.

Almost poor, poor, very poor (Iping, 2020). BLT was first held in Indonesia in 2005 and

continued in 2009 and 2013 was renamed to temporary direct community assistance (BLSM).

The government introduced BLT to the public in 2005. The program was initiated by Jusuf

Kalla right after he and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won the Indonesian presidential and vice-

presidential elections in 2004 and finally based on presidential instruction number 12 was

promoted Unconditional Cash Direct Assistance Program from October 2005 to December

2006 with a target of 19.2 million poor families (Suharto, 2009). Then because the world oil

price rose again, BLT was held again in 2008 based on the instruction of the President of

Indonesia number 3 of 2008. Finally, in 2013 the government again organized BLT but under

systems are intended to help individuals and communities deal with shocks in life, such as

593 Interdisciplinary Social Studies, 1(5), Feb 2022

falling ill, the death of family members, losing their jobs, being hit by disasters or natural

disasters, and so on.

Direct Cash Assistance (BLT) is direct assistance in the form of a certain amount of cash

for target households (RTS), while the understanding of RTS is a household that falls into the

category of very poor, and almost poor. The economic impact caused by the Covid-19

pandemic is very influential for the level of community welfare. This is due to restrictions on

economic activities that macro-decrease economic growth and cause many people to lose their

burden of the poor due to Covid 19. The government has designed various new policies in order

to suppress the spread and handling of this virus. One of them is the issuance of Law Number

2 of 2020 on the establishment of government regulations in lieu of Law Nomor 1 Tahun 2020

on the state's financial policy and financial system stability for handling the Covid-19 pandemic

and in order to deal with threats that endanger the national economy and financial stability into

law (Nurhasanah, 2015).

In addition, in order to protect the poor, the government expanded the social safety net

(JPS) including those contained in PDTT village minister regulation No. 6 of 2020 on changes

to PDTT village minister regulation No. 11 of 2019 on the priority of using village funds,

including related to the provision of direct cash assistance sourced from village funds

fishermen and traders. Income from fishermen and swords is only enough to meet the daily

needs of the family. In addition, considering that Indonesia is currently affected by the

Coronavirus, and plus the Coronavirus causes the economic activities of the community to

macro-decrease economic growth and causes people to lose their jobs so as to potentially

increase the number of poor people. With circumstances like this, it is important to observe

how to make the community can meet the needs of families who only work as fishermen and

traders (Rivai & Buchari, 2009).

Table 1. Number of Residents of Pasar III Natal Village Based on Search Eyes

594 Interdisciplinary Social Studies, 1(5), Feb 2022

Direct Cash Assistance (BLT) as a short-term compensation program whose main goal is

to keep the level of household consumption that is classified as poor does not decrease during

the current pandemic that occurred in Indonesia. Although the Cash Direct Assistance (BLT)

program is not the only program related to poverty reduction, it is expected to encourage

poverty reduction. In this case, BLT is expected to help and alleviate the burden of the poor in

meeting their needs.

Seeing from the impact of this policy, this policy does not have a significant impact on

of the household daily. In addition, after this assistance is completed the community will again

experience economic difficulties because it does not get any more help from the village

government, most people expect the training, special skills, and business capital assistance to

be provided from the village government so that the community does not receive free assistance

but also capital that is special skills and business capital to connect their lives.

METHOD

This type of research is qualitative research, which uses observations, interviews, or

document reviews. Qualitative research is research that emphasizes the aspect of deep

understanding of a problem and looking at problems for generalization research (Afrizal,

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This direct cash assistance program aims to help the economy of the poor during the covid-

19 pandemic so this assistance is expected to help the community in meeting the needs and

helping the economic life of the poor. As for the data on public expenditure in 1 month and

nominal BLT received that we must know. With the aim, so that we know this direct cash

assistance helps the community or not. The data presented is as follows.

Table 2. Expenditure Data and Nominal BLT Received by The Community

No

1

2

3

595 Interdisciplinary Social Studies, 1(5), Feb 2022

From the table above it is explained that there are 8 respondents with their work and

household expenses in 1 month and the nominal BLT they receive. This table aims to see how

helpful BLT is for the community in a period of 1 month with a nominal BLT of Rp.600,000 /

month.

Village Fund BLT Allocation

d) Households registered as recipients of assistance at the village level that has not been

reached by national/regional programs, such as zakat-receiving households;

e) Households with primary breadwinners who are unable to work or earn are severely

affected by the Covid 19 outbreak.

f) Households that are unable to buy or access basic necessities, especially food, due to

the Covid 19 outbreak.

g) Households that according to the local community are recommended to receive

program benefits in accordance with local opportunities and wisdom.

If you look at this Direct Cash Assistance helps or not, the Cash Direct Assistance Program

in Pasar III Natal Village does not reduce poverty, but this assistance can help the poor to

596 Interdisciplinary Social Studies, 1(5), Feb 2022

the average public expenditure from Rp.800,000-Rp.1,000,000 / month. when viewed from the

nominal BLT assistance is only Rp. 600,000 / month. Then it can be concluded that the BLT

provided has not been able to help the community within a predetermined period of time or

within a period of 1 month.

CONCLUSION

The conclusions in this study are:

capital, but this assistance has helped in meeting the needs of life.