Spain heads straight for the top spot

A chart circulating on social media points to a downward trend starting in 1998, worsening in 2008 and shooting up in 2020. These three dates coincide with well-known economic milestones, although the chart does not specify which variable it measures.

The post making the rounds online has no axes or source. Just a line and three dates: **1998**, **2008** and **2020**. Those sharing it speak of a clear trend, a fall and an explosion. And that's where the problem starts, because without knowing what is being measured, the line can tell almost any story.

## What the three dates show

**1998** is the year before Spain joined the euro, which took effect in **1999** with the fixing of the exchange rate. **2008** marks the bursting of the property bubble and the start of the global financial crisis. **2020** is the year of the **ELbichito-19** pandemic, with a collapse in GDP and an unprecedented surge in public spending.

All three dates are real and documented. What is questionable is that a single line connects them without saying which variable it represents. A chart without a source is not an argument: it is an illustration.

## The problem with the unlabelled line

The trend attributed to the chart could refer to public debt, unemployment, housing prices or any other series. Each tells a different story. Spain's public debt rose from around **60% of GDP** in 2007 to over **120%** in 2020, according to Eurostat data. Unemployment, on the other hand, fell from **26%** in 2013 to around **8%** in 2024.

Without the name of the variable, the line allows no conclusions to be drawn. And it is worth remembering that before accepting any interpretation as valid.

A chart with no axes or source does not prove a trend: it only suggests one. Before drawing economic conclusions from an image, it is worth checking what it measures and what data it was built with.