JAKARTA — The numbers tell a grim story. Indonesia has 270 million people. Roughly 70 million of them work in the informal economy. No contracts. No benefits. No savings to fall back on. When the coronavirus hit, their income stopped. Not slowed. Stopped.
President Joko Widodo announced a Rp 405 trillion stimulus package on March 31. The government removed the budget deficit cap to make room. It cut corporate taxes. It promised cash aid to 20 million poor households. The total value is $24.2 billion. On paper, it looks like a massive intervention.
But the money is not all going to workers. Analysts say the package has to cover three things at once: healthcare, social protection, and economic programs. Each one eats into the total. Spread that thin, and the cushion gets flat fast.
Bhima Yudhistira of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance put it bluntly. “If the government wants to do both, 405 trillion rupiah is not enough,” he said. “Many sectors have been greatly impacted by the outbreak, particularly informal workers and small businesses.”
The government itself seems to expect the worst. The cash aid program targets 20 million beneficiaries. That is a sharp increase from previous social assistance schemes. Analysts see that number as a signal — a quiet admission that mass layoffs are coming. You do not double the safety net if you think the net will stay empty.
Indonesia’s economy depends on the informal sector. Street vendors. Day laborers. Drivers. Household workers. They make up a huge share of the workforce. A lockdown, or even a slowdown in demand, wipes out their income overnight. No severance. No unemployment insurance. No buffer.
The COVID-19 caseload is still rising. Hospitals are under pressure. The government has to spend on testing, treatment, and protective gear. That money comes from the same pot. Every rupiah spent on a ventilator is a rupiah not spent on a food package.
The stimulus was announced on March 31. The warnings came on April 5. In between, the virus did not wait. Neither did the economic damage. Small businesses closed. Workers went home with empty pockets. The package was meant to stop that bleed. But the wound is bigger than the bandage.
This is not a new problem. Indonesia has long relied on informal labor. The government has long struggled to extend protections to those workers. The pandemic did not create the gap. It just made it impossible to ignore.
Seventy million people. That is more than the entire population of many countries. They have no paid sick leave. No guaranteed income. No way to work from home. When the economy shutters, they are the first to fall.
The Rp 405 trillion figure sounds big. But Indonesia is a big country. The money has to stretch across healthcare, social aid, and business support. Each sector has urgent needs. Each sector has powerful voices demanding its share.
Analysts say the sum is not enough. They point to the scale of the informal workforce. They point to the rising case numbers. They point to the government’s own planning, which anticipates 20 million people needing direct cash aid. Those 20 million are the lucky ones. The other 50 million informal workers get nothing from that program.
The stimulus is a start. But a start does not finish a race. And in this race, the finish line keeps moving.
