RESUMO
Faced with the COVID19 pandemic, the Latin American governments have taken measures that have and will have a profound economic and social impact. While many of this measures might mitigate the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic and of the epidemiological strategies to contain its spread they might end up enhancing the vulnerabilities of the social structure and the deficits of the social protection systems. In this scenario, the debate on proposals such as citizen income or basic income is growing. Although its implementation would be desirable, there are not many possibilities in the short term because it depends on changes in the perception of elites, investment to overcome structural deficits in the provision of public goods and the transformation of conceptions that supports the current policies of targeted and conditional cash transfers.