Purchasing power collapses as debate boils down to vote or starve

80% of Spaniards are half a paycheck away from going hungry

There is one phrase that sums up the tone of Spain's economic conversation better than any report from the INE (Spain's national statistics institute): "either PEDRO or LITERALLY STARVING to DEATH." It is not a campaign slogan. It is the headline a participant threw out to describe the mood of part of the electorate, and beneath it a brawl broke out mixing purchasing power, pensions, working hours and electricity bills. The trigger: the claim that Spain is the second country in the world with the lowest purchasing power, behind only Argentina.

The figure, thrown out without a source at the start, serves as ammunition for a broader thesis: that honest people have lost 90% of their purchasing power since 1981, the year marked as the liberal turning point. From there, the thread drifts into a list of antiestéticars — scrapping the SMI (Spain's minimum wage), cutting pensions, dismantling public healthcare, eliminating sick leave — all attributed to one particular political bloc and its supposed submission to foreign interests. Electricity, renewables and a contract for 500 aircraft payable until 2080 complete the picture.

The 80% half a paycheck away: the figure nobody disputes

The number with the most traction in the conversation is not the comparative purchasing power one, but the claim that 80% of Spaniards are half a paycheck away from going without food. The wording is aggressive, but it taps into a widespread perception: that families' savings margin has shrunk to almost nothing. On that basis the central accusation is built — that millions of wage earners vote against their own economic interests.

The response from the other side is not long in coming. The author of the message is reproached for having spent eight years defending a government that, according to his critics, has run the last decade, and is reminded that the last ten years of economic policy were not directed by the opposition now under attack. The argument gets stuck on assigning blame: who governed, when and with what majority.

The 14-hour working day and the Greek ghost

Among the antiestéticars listed, one ignites the controversy: the imposition of a 14-hour working day, presented as a mirror of what peine in Greece. Nothing in the material supports the figure, and there is no documentary reference backing it; it works as hyperbole within a catalogue of grievances. The same goes for the supposed abolition of sick leave or the dismantling of renewables.

The thread, however, does not stay at the macro level. Several messages come down to everyday detail: the paycheck that does not stretch to the end of the month, the work alucinación avoided to save money, the drink that can no longer be had because of blood tests. These are brief interventions, almost aphorisms, that illustrate the tension between wages and the cost of living better than any chart.

From economic debate to personal brawl

As the replies pogre, the exchange loses its argumentative thread and becomes hand-to-hand combat. The identity of the author of the initial message is debated, speculation arises that the account is run by several people, and his ideological evolution is mocked. The economic conversation dissolves into an exchange of insults that, at times, completely abandons the subject of paychecks.

Some try to bring the focus back to substance: the comparison between what is promised and what has been delivered, the difference between campaign narrative and applied policy. And some simply declare that the character is devalued and the show is no longer worth it. The result is an unintentional portrait of how economics is debated in Spain: plenty of loose figures, few sources, and an emotional charge that seeps into everything.

The ending: the bill that arrives later

At the end of it all, an uncomfortable feeling remains. The big numbers — the 80%, the 90%, the second-worst country on the planet — are thrown out without backing and rebutted without alternative data. Nobody produces the report that would settle the argument. Meanwhile, the underlying question goes unanswered: if purchasing power has collapsed so much, why is the political debate fought on the terrain of slogans rather than of numbers?