Three degrees, low pay: the frustration driving the vote

Three degrees and less purchasing power than 50 years ago: the anger looking for a ballot

What is left for someone with three degrees when wages don't stretch and housing slips out of reach? A debate peine on an economics forum starts with that question and with a voting threat: backing the current Spanish prime minister in exchange for a basic income of nearly 850 euros. The author of the opening post piles up grievances — the most expensive prices on the continent, lower wages, no chance of buying property — and fires them off as a single reproach: don't you dare throw the ball back at me for wrecking the country.

The majority response soon shifts the focus. Many of those taking part argue that the problem is not the system but the expectation: studying guarantees nothing and the market pays according to demand, not diplomas. Against that, another camp holds that the frustration is real and that graduate precarity is a symptom, not a petulant complaint.

How much does a single adult get on minimum income?

The opening post mentions a basic income of nearly 850 euros as an electoral lure. The figure soon collides with administrative reality: according to a calculation circulating in the thread, the Ingreso Mínimo Vital (Spain's minimum vital income benefit) for a single adult is around 650 euros over twelve payments, and it takes the whole household unit into account. If the applicant is registered at the same address as their parents, the household's income counts towards the calculation and the benefit can be denied or reduced. The trick of registering separately exists, but it guarantees nothing.

That is where one of the thread's tensions appears: the gap between what is promised on the campaign trail and what the benefits system actually grants afterwards. Basic income as a slogan clashes with the fine print of regional and state management.

The productivity argument: three degrees are not worth more than a trade

The most repeated objection is plain economic common sense. A graduate in humanities or fine arts has no automatic right to earn more than a plumber or a healthcare technician: wages depend on demand and the value delivered, not on the number of diplomas hanging on the wall. The thread goes as far as claiming that a mid-level vocational qualification in a technical field can generate more value than three degrees with no clear career path.

The counterarguments are just as forceful. Contributors point out that 36 years of contributions as a self-employed worker, without a single day of sick leave or unemployment, do exist, and that complaining about a lack of opportunities does not exempt anyone from the duty to look for them. Personal experience is used as the measuring stick: someone who has been living independently and earning their own keep since the age of 22 does not buy the story of structural impossibility.

AI and the degree that loses its market

One contributor adds the technological nuance: someone who started vocational training in 2021 and graduated in 2023 found that artificial intelligence was already performing part of the skills they had learned. The degree doesn't expire, but the job does. It is the updated version of the problem: there are not only more graduates, but the work they trained for can be automated.

That point connects with the frustration of the opening post without endorsing its diagnosis. Precarity comes not only from prices or wages, but from a market that changes faster than curricula.

The IBEX as a weapon: which term sank the index most

The discussion drifts into comparing governments. The figures being traded: the IBEX fell a cumulative 21% under Aznar between 2000 and 2004, with a 53% plunge from the March 2000 peak; under Zapatero, -39.4% in a single year (2008), the index's biggest annual crash, and an intraday low of 6,750 in March 2009. Under Sánchez, -15% in 2018 and -15.1% in 2020.

The political use of these numbers is obvious: each side picks the stretch that suits it. The conclusion drawn is that no government comes out unscathed from a stock market comparison, and that the IBEX measures profit expectations, not the purchasing power of someone on a payslip.

From "give me more" to insults: how the conversation broke down

The discussion soon degrades. The author of the opening post is accused of seeking provocation rather than information, of asking the same question three times with the answer already written. His response is to raise the tone and announce that he has applied for basic income. From then on, an exchange of slurs replaces analysis.

The pattern is familiar: when the data doesn't fit the thesis, the argument ends in insults. The noisy exit, to put it in poker-table terms. The thread ends with the ignore button and the feeling that nobody has moved their position a millimetre.

The missing calculation: what it really costs to sustain the state

The underlying question remains unanswered. If basic income is universalised, who pays for it? The thread points to workers paying social contributions and to self-employed people with years of effort behind them, but there is no estimate of the aggregate cost or of how it would fit into public finances. The gap between the right to a benefit and the obligation to fund it is the hole nobody fills.

The final irony comes from the material itself: while the debate rages over whether three degrees deserve a higher salary, the discussion of how the system is sustained goes nowhere. As if the public payroll came out of a drawer.