One out of eight families in Spain struggling to get by

Vacations a luxury almost half of households can't afford, with many unable to cope with unexpected expenses

El País Madrid 23 OCT 2012 - 13:20 CET

Spain's economic crisis has an all-too-human face. With about a quarter of the working population out of a job, and 1.7 million households in which none of its members are employed, a growing number of families are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

According to the National Statistics Institute (INE) 2012 Survey of Living Conditions report, 12.7 percent of households polled said that they had great difficulties in getting to the end of the month on their limited budgets. That was 2.9 percentage points higher than last year's survey.

A further 44.5 percent said they could not afford to take a vacation of at least a week a year away from home, up 5.6 points from last year, while 40 percent said they were unable to cope with unexpected bills, up from 35.9 percent. Another 7.4 percent reported having been behind on bills related to the main home, such as mortgage and rental payments, or gas and electricity bills.

All of this is a reflection of falling incomes in a context in which experts say the only way Spain can increase its competitiveness - in the absence of its own monetary policy and the possibility of devaluation - is through internal devaluation. Average household income this year was estimated at 24,609 euros, down 1.9 percent from a year earlier.

Despite this, the percentage of people living below the poverty line - defined as 60 percent of average income - fell to 21.1 percent from 21.8 percent last year. This is largely explained by a fall in the number of people over 65 years old below the poverty line, to 16.9 percent this year from 21.7 percent in 2010. In the case of those aged between 16 and 64 years, the figure increased over the same period from 19.4 to 21.0 percent.

The regions with the greatest number of people below the poverty line were the Canary Islands (33.8 percent), Extremadura (31.9 percent) and Andalusia (31.7 percent). The lowest figures were in Navarre (8.8 percent), Asturias (9.9 percent) and the Basque Country (10.8 percent).