Pedro Sánchez began using the expression “working middle class” extensively in the summer of 2022, coinciding with the peak of inflation (10% year-on-year) caused by the war in Ukraine, which reached 10% year-on-year. The aim was to convey to his voters that the Government was taking measures to protect that part of the population. But, who are the working middle class?
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The OECD defines the middle class as those households with incomes between 75% and 200% of the national median income. When the CIS asks Spaniards in which category they place themselves, almost 60% see themselves as middle class. In reality, there are not that many. Between 10 and 15% less. It is easier to identify with the “working middle class” than with the lower class.
For the first time Sumar is willing to touch housing taxation to reach an agreement with Junts and PNV
The most common salary in Spain is around 1,200 euros net per month. In the last decade, the accumulated CPI has grown by 30%. Although the latest inflation data are contained, the accumulated effect on the shopping basket and housing is evident. That is why, every time the president boasts about the good economic data, both employment and growth, being true, it causes confusion, if not irritation, among that working middle class that sees how their salary buys less and less.
The PP champions tax cuts, while the PSOE defends them to maintain public services and points out that the right seeks to lower them for the rich. But the message that the State has plenty of revenue is taking hold and the debate on the deflation of the IRPF opens, which is not in itself a tax cut, but an update of that tax to inflation.
Sánchez has asked employers to raise wages, but the socialists have limited measures against inflation to aid for affected sectors, while Sumar focuses on housing because it is considered to be what eats up salaries. However, the approach to housing is causing nothing but frustration, as time is needed to address it and there is no consensus to approve solutions. There are only excessively ideologized stubborn positions summarized as “intervention yes, intervention no.” And when a problem faces such a dichotomy, it is doomed to stagnation.
Now, for the first time Sumar is willing to swallow the toad of tax cuts related to housing in order to get the rental extension approved with the support of Junts and the PNV. The socialists have proposed incentives and penalties in the IRPF for landlords depending on whether they raise or lower the price for their tenants, in addition to regulating seasonal rentals. These and other measures will be negotiated with those groups with the intention of making a package with the extension that has lapsed and approving it after the summer. That is why the PNV did not support the extension and abstained, to have room for negotiation, like Junts. We will see if they are able to agree on something.
Read more The repeal of the rental extension leaves thousands of contracts in legal limbo
Housing and the cost of living are urgent challenges. The opposition focuses on immigration and corruption. Soon the trial of Sánchez’s brother will arrive and the date for that of his wife is yet to be set. The mobilization of the anti-Sánchez electorate is at its peak and those trials will reinforce it. The message is to oust the president to recover calm in public life.
Tension is growing. In the Andalusian campaign, Santiago Abascal called the president “shit” and “pimp.” This week the troublemaker Vito Quiles harassed Begoña Gómez. Almost no one from the Government can walk through Madrid without being heckled, reflecting a polarization that deteriorates coexistence and that, when it affected Catalonia during the procés, worried a lot in the capital. Recently, a minister was harassed by someone who started recording him with a mobile phone… in a supermarket while shopping, as if he were committing a crime. The general elections will unfold between what those harassment episodes represent that fuel the call to end “Sanchism” and the pressure that prices exert on the pockets of most voters when filling the weekly basket.
There will be no new budgets in this legislature
Budgets as an electoral program
The last General State Budgets approved correspond to the year 2023. The Government committed several times to present those for 2026, but the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, finally left for Andalusia to compete in the elections of that community without having done so. The truth is that the legislature is on track to end without having approved any budget, since those for 2023 correspond to Pedro Sánchez’s previous term. The fact is that the Government already assumes that there will be no budgets in 2026 and those for 2027 will be presented without any expectation of approval, but rather to serve as the PSOE’s electoral program for the general elections.
New delay in implementation
The amnesty, now for after the summer
The Constitutional Court is waiting for the Court of Justice of the EU to rule on whether the amnesty law can be applied to embezzlement cases affecting the independence leaders. Although it is difficult to know the intentions of the European court, everything indicates that this ruling will not arrive before June and then the Constitutional Court will have to deliberate on it. It will first resolve the cases affecting those already convicted, such as Oriol Junqueras. Although then its ruling could already be applied to Carles Puigdemont, if the Supreme Court does not lift the arrest warrant, the Constitutional Court will also have to rule specifically on the Belgium cases. In short, we are going past the summer.
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