Living with 3,000 euros

The convergent mayoral candidate Xavier Trias has said that a Barcelona resident with a salary of 3,000 euros has problems making ends meet. The statements are newsworthy, not only because Trias has waited several months of this very heavy municipal pre-campaign to share something minimally intelligent and objectifiable with his electorate, but also because of the textbook and elementary economic reactions of his opponents.

If we perpetrate something as boomer as taking paper and pencil, we will see, for example, that a Barcelona resident earning three thousand euros, if living in a rented apartment, will face an average price that last year reached 1,077 euros per month (Incasòl data). Let's assume that, apart from such misfortune, the citizen has the flaw of being self-employed and disburses the monthly robbery that represents one of the highest fees on the planet (with a minimum of 300 euros), a figure to which the Treasury has the grace to add quarterly payments and, of course, a series of penalties in case of combining them with a fixed salary.

This shows that our three-thousand-euro Barcelona resident will have already lost half of their monthly allowance just by daring to live with a roof over their head and sleep knowing that the state will not stop them, despite stealing an indecent amount of money from them. Let's assume, which is not too much to assume, that this fellow citizen wants to have a series of first-world luxuries at home such as electricity, gas, heating, or even Wi-Fi.

And let's assume that, being a true Barcelona resident, they have the temerity to feed themselves with the extraordinary provisions provided by the magnificent stallholders of any market in a random neighborhood. Everyone can do their calculations and variables, but they will quickly see how, from the salary of this three-thousand-euro earner, only a third remains. To continue assuming, let's imagine that this bipedal Barcelona resident cures their existential unease like most of humanity (namely, by procreating): well, according to Mr. Save The Children, raising a child in Catalonia represents a total of 829 euros each month.

With a simple and contrasted sum of roof, taxpayer duties, progeny and stomach, we see that this (supposedly) privileged three-thousand-euro earner from Barcelona is left with, at most, three hundred to five hundred euros per month. We have not mentioned any outlay related to transport or the material needed for work; even if the expense is saved, our supposed millionaire has a minimal sum to spend on activities that, in times of prosperity, were not considered a luxury (such as paying for a gym, dining with the costella at Gresca, or going to London to sing at the top of one's lungs the catchy melodies of Mamma Mia!).

All the doctoral theses in the world can be written about the fiction that represented the middle class of the 90s and all the metaphysics one wants about how the city has become a morbidly consumption-driven community. But, however much it weighs on demagogues, a Barcelona resident has serious difficulties living in their city with 3,000 pepinos per month.

This undeniable reality does not detract from the truth that a Barcelona resident with the city's average salary (around 1,800 euros) does not live the same or even more screwed than our hypothetical protagonist. Nor does it diminish the extremely difficult living conditions experienced by half of the wage earners in our capital, who breathe with the laughable figure of 1,400 euros. Politics is not a race to see who is more screwed, but a struggle of projects that seeks the best cultural-economic system to incentivize the well-being of voters.

Politics is not a race to see who is more screwed, but a struggle of projects that seeks the best cultural-economic system to incentivize the well-being of voters

It was foreseeable that the city's left would continue with the demonstrably false demagoguery, according to which a Barcelonian with 3,000 euros in their pouch can be depicted as privileged (incidentally, this is a salary considerably lower than that of most city councilors who uphold the falsehood), just as it was expected that most politicians aspiring to the City Council would not tire of lying to the most impoverished citizens of Barcelona, telling them that through public aid or with Venezuelan checks to buy books and pencil cases, they would escape economic marginalization.

We are witnessing truly delusional scenes, such as a politician with the experience of Ernest Maragall promising a minimum wage of 1,500 euros. Sad to see, especially for those affected. It is surprising, I insist, that there is no candidate who breaks the norm or the economic falsehoods of the current administration, which has had a success quite easy to verify, seeing how Barcelonians are exiling themselves en masse from their beloved city. 

Falsifiers who promote outdated policies and apparent alternatives that speak with a small voice. One more reason, as if we didn't have enough, to abstain in the upcoming elections.