The frustration of the Spanish economic ‘rocket’ | Opinion
The sinking of the middle class It also hits the left. Pedro Sánchez arrived at the back of a political cycle of great expectations, but seven years later he can be asked Yes your rocket It has really transformed the Spanish economy. This left has been able to alleviate the regret of the most humble people, but not to return to the middle class their ambitious dreams of improvement. Immigration is the other miracle face of the government.
According to data from the Bank of Spain, Between 2022 and 2024 the average annual progress of GDP per capita (2.9%) It came mainly driven by an increase in the number of people who work. From that increase, a quarter was due to migrants. These already occupy 40% of the new jobs, according to function; Somewhat less than half has a low level of studies, and More than half are overwhelified for the positions they play. Therefore, our country grows more by volume of workers than by increased productivity: in 2024, it only contributed to 1.1% of GDP (3.2%). If we look at him in historical perspective, Salaries, discounting inflation, have practically stagnated since 2008. Our standard of living has not varied substantially in almost 20 years, although now we congratulate ourselves to have more employees, whether from here or outside.
That explains the cycle of frustrated expectations that the left has caused. Its debt, when the government changes, will continue to be with the old middle classes, today very sliding down: more than two thirds of the active population They do not collect 30,000 gross euros a year. Our young people, tomorrow’s adults, are already somatizing it: We attend a generation that hopes to inherit « Who knows if with 50 years – as the only way to correct her precariousness. » And, yet, the worst inheritance we leave is the normalization of their poverty. Namely, that the middle class was also because I could dream of a full or better life, not being an eternal castrated child of autonomy until quarantine.
Of course, not everything is the fault of the current Executive: there are structural factors that condition our economy and are not resolved in seven years, even less if they do not implement draft reforms. It can be claimed that Sanchez has faced a Inflationist cycle, partly capped thanks to the fact that this time the European Union opened the expense tap. Now, those aids have only served so that people do not end even more impoverished, unlike what happened in the austerity crisis of 2011, where we saw mass dismissals on a daily basis. On the other hand, none of that has served to resurrect an illusion generation by a buoyant horizon.
The left’s debt with The old middle classes It has become concept. There will be those who congratulate the macroeconomic data, despite the insufficient salaries to deal with the cost of life – like housing, which is runaway – and there will be those who wonder why progressivism seems to resign today to manage that precariousness – or stagnation of the standard of living – with palliatives. In that our imaginary has radically changed in 20 years. Before 15-M, a good part of the left was paid to the idea of the social elevator, to the eagerness for prosperity closely linked to the notion of personal freedom to choose a life project. Currently, most PSOE’s speeches, add or pivot about promising citizens that at least, The State may rescue them if they fall into poverty. That Soniquete is increasingly common as a way to naturalize a covert dependence scheme, far from the emancipation yearnings of yesteryear.
It is easier to recognize the measures of the executive oriented to the most humble classes than the efforts to recover a true middle class. See The increase in the minimum wage « Not far from the most frequent salary, » the extension of the minimum vital income or protection against evictions. The government also assumes that two million people are not poor today thanks to having a pensioner in their environment. It is even promised reduce working hours as a consolation prize in the face of a surely raw and difficult material reality to reverse.
In summary, the sinking of the middle class in this country has become structural for new generations if nothing changes. And maybe, explain why The possibility of governing the Popular Party does not crowd the streets, Seeing the prick of its demonstration last Sunday. Many citizens have probably concluded that bipartisanship defends the same status quo, that political alternation will not transform the fund of the Spanish economy. Maybe that’s why some more emotion was felt in Madrid Economic Forum, with its ultraliberal air, which seconding to Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the Plaza de España. The chainsaw is what one craves when it reaches the feeling that the system is irreformable. Paradoxically, the frustrated expectations left by the left are also responsible for that desire, no matter how much that Pedro Sánchez congratulates himself on his acclaimed rocket economic.
