Former Finance Minister Nicolás Grau said that José Antonio Kast’s government’s 2027 Budget Bill cuts funding for employment subsidies by 30% compared with 2026, according to El Mostrador. He made the remarks in an interview with the outlet’s Al Pan Pan program.
Grau, an economist who headed the Ministry of Finance during Gabriel Boric’s government, pointed to a gap between official rhetoric and the figures. "On employment subsidies, it is not only timid but is moving backward," he said.
Employment subsidies are state contributions intended to encourage hiring. They help make it cheaper for a company to hire someone. According to Grau, when all these programs are added together, the amount for 2027 is 30% below the current 2026 budget.
"The government’s message about a month ago, which changed on this point, was that it would make a significant effort on employment subsidies and public investment. But in practice, the government is not doing it," the former minister said.
His second criticism concerns public investment, meaning state spending on projects such as roads, hospitals or housing. Grau acknowledged significant growth in the ministries of Public Works and Housing, calling it "good news."
The problem, he said, emerges when looking at the full picture. State investment also goes through Health, Education and regional governments. When these are added together, total public investment would grow by only 1.6%.
That figure is below the increase in current spending, which includes everything other than investment, such as salaries and operating expenses. That category would rise by 2.9%, according to the figures Grau presented. For the former minister, the comparison reveals the proposal’s actual priorities.
Grau offered an explanation, which he himself presented as a personal hypothesis. "The government’s economic team does not believe in this. But it faces pressure from the more political side, from its lawmakers, who ask it to do it," he said. The result, in his view, is "rhetoric as if they were doing it, when in reality they are not."
The criticisms were also political. Grau said the decisions in the proposal show that "the Republican Party is governing, rather than Chile Vamos," and included elements he described as "anti-science, anti-women, anti-university rhetoric that disregards the climate crisis."
El Mostrador’s report does not include a response from the government or the Ministry of Finance to these figures, and so far no other source has confirmed them. The bill remains under discussion in Congress, where it must be passed before the start of the 2027 budget year.
