Indonesia Allocates Funds for Additional Wage Subsidy Assistance

JAKARTA — The government has shifted the budget for electricity tariff discount assistance to the Wage Subsidy Assistance (BSU) program in response to global economic dynamics and time constraints in budgeting. This policy was taken to maintain people’s purchasing power, especially low-income workers and honorary teachers.

BSU is now given at IDR 300,000 per month for two months, replacing the 50 percent electricity discount program previously planned for the June-July 2025 period.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati explained that this decision was taken so that the government’s stimulus would be more effective in supporting public consumption. She emphasized that BSU will have a more direct and significant impact than electricity discounts.

According to her, the government wants the assistance distributed to be able to provide a greater leverage effect on the national economy, so the budget shift to BSU is considered the right step.

This BSU targets around 17 million workers with salaries below IDR 3.5 million and 3.4 million honorary teachers. The total budget prepared by the government for this program reached IDR 10.72 trillion, with each recipient receiving IDR 600,000 for two months.

The Ministry of Finance stated that the decision not to continue the electricity discount program was due to technical constraints in budgeting, which made its implementation impossible in a short time.

Sri Mulyani also said that the data collection of BSU recipients is now more accurate and up-to-date thanks to the data matching between BPJS Ketenagakerjaan and the National Integrated Socio-Economic Data (DTSEN). With cleaner and more valid data, the distribution of BSU is guaranteed to be more targeted.

Head of the Presidential Communications Office Hasan Nasbi assessed this policy shift as a realistic short-term efficiency measure. The government, he said, has designed five stimulus packages with a total budget of IDR 24.4 trillion to support the national economy.

Meanwhile, Minister of Manpower Yassierli stated that the disbursement of BSU is targeted to begin on Thursday, June 5, 2025. He said that the process of finalizing recipient data is ongoing and is expected to be completed soon. *