Eight years of Sánchez: higher taxes, lower wages in Spain

Eight years of Sánchez: frozen wages and collapsing public services

A quick walk down the street is enough to see the map of impoverishment described by public opinion: a median salary below 1,300 euros, unaffordable housing, petrol at record highs and a shopping basket more expensive than Germany's. The diagnosis making the rounds does not stop at the current situation: it goes back to 2004 and points to an entire political class that would have legitimised the decline in purchasing power while breaking tax revenue records.

The figure that dismantles the official narrative
The contradiction is hard to sustain: the state collects more than ever, yet it does not translate into better roads or less overcrowded hospitals. The "there is no money" argument clashes with the tax burden and with the perception that the money is going elsewhere. Some see it as a deliberate impoverishment plan, others as chronic inefficiency of the system. There are also readings that point to social and migration spending as a pressure factor, though without solid data.

Can another government fix it?
Scepticism prevails here. The idea that Sánchez is the only problem loses force when you remember that policy over the last twenty years, under different governments, has kept the same course. Changing the tenant at Moncloa (the Spanish prime minister's official residence) does not guarantee a change of policy. The irony of waiting for a saviour with every handover is that the structural diagnosis remains intact.

The closing argument that unsettles
The highest tax revenue in history coincides with the strongest sense of decline. If Spain were the promised land some sell it as, Norwegians would be flocking here to work. They are not.