Spain is richer. There are more jobs and the Gross Domestic Product increases. But these data hide another reality, wealth is growing but so is poverty.
One in every 12 people in Spain (8.1%) would suffer from severe material deficiency in 2022, more than double that before the financial crisis (in 2007, 3.5%). And even one point above the 2014 figure (7.1%), the highest recorded up to that time since the National Institute of Statistics (INE) began carrying out the Living Conditions Survey in 2004.
According to INE data analyzed in Focus on Spanish Society, a publication edited by Funcas, all the gains in this indicator between 2014 and 2019, a five-year period in which severe material deficiency was reduced from 7.1% to 4.7%, were " they lost" in 2020 (7%).
One of the concepts included in the material deficiency indicator is the ability to maintain the home at an adequate temperature. In this aspect there are notable differences between the 27 countries of the European Union, according to Eurostat data. With 17.1% of its population stating that they cannot maintain an adequate temperature at home, Spain is above the European average (9.3%). In countries like Austria, Sweden and Finland the proportion of people affected by this problem is less than 3%, Funcas points out.
The sharp rise in food prices since 2021, aggravated by the war in Ukraine, may also have seriously affected the most vulnerable households. However, in this dimension of material lack, Spain records more positive data. In 2022, 5.4% of the population stated that they could not afford meat, chicken or fish at least every two days, a proportion higher than that of 2021 (4.7%), but significantly lower than those observed not only in many countries from Eastern Europe, but also in Germany (11.4%), Greece (10%), France (9.5%) and Italy (7.5%).
But there are important differences between communities. While around a fifth of the population of Extremadura (23%), Andalusia (21%) and Murcia (20%) declared in 2022 that they would not be able to keep their home at an adequate temperature, these figures were below 10 % in Castilla y León, Basque Country, Navarra, La Rioja and Aragón.
These latter regions are also the ones that fare best if you focus on people who can afford a meal of meat, chicken or fish every other day.
The differences here are even more pronounced than in the ability to keep the home at an appropriate temperature. Thus, the highest rate (Canary Islands, with 11.9%) is six times higher than the lowest (Aragón, with 1.9%). In both indicators, the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla present the worst results.
