Surely the majority of those three million working poor do not think they are poor. They have become accustomed to living on the wire, saving month after month with all kinds of survival strategies, giving up vacations and dentists, and always afraid of losing their footing and falling.
You don’t remember because you are very young, but there was a time when poor people looked for work to get out of poverty. The beggars were pitiful with signs that began with “I am unemployed and have three children…”. Governments were betting on “job insertion” against social exclusion. And the liberals said that about “the better social policy it is to create employment”, and that the poor had to be given a fishing rod, not a kilo of whiting.
That is why it is not well understood that we continue to have so many poor people when employment breaks records, the number of unemployed falls to historic figures, temporary employment is reduced and the minimum wage increases. Where are all those poor people, I don’t see them?, we ask ourselves in disbelief, in the manner of that Madrid councilor from Senoritingo who he made the gesture of looking for them on the ground. Where are the millions of poor people, that I don’t see them? Well, many will surely be working, and that’s why you don’t see them.
In our social imagination, the poor are still those who beg on the street or sleep among cardboard. But that is extreme poverty, which by the way still exists, you just have to walk around any city at night. What we do not see is that of someone who is not solemnly poor, but lives below the poverty line. And many of your neighbors would come in there, perhaps someone you know. Maybe you yourself, and you had not even considered that you could be counted as poor.
The poverty threshold in Spain is 915 euros per person. If during the year your average monthly income is below that, you are poor. You are not poor for begging, not at least for begging on the street, but you are poor for practicing other forms of begging: asking your family to make ends meet, asking the bank for any domestic breakdown, or asking for social assistance to avoid ending up in poverty. street. Living on 915 euros means that today you are already at the end of the month, and there are still two weeks ahead. Poor families, poor retirees, and of course poor workers.
According to the report just published Oxfam/Intermon“Working poverty: when working is not enough to make ends meet,” almost three million workers live below the poverty line. Despite having a job. And we are not talking about a “chapu”: you can have a contract, contributions and payroll, and still be poor. Or being a self-employed worker, which is one of the groups where it is most difficult to get above the poverty line. And among the working poor, the poorest, as always, are the most vulnerable in any social parameter: migrants. Those so rejected today, but who continue to work in the lower part of the labor market.
Surely the majority of those three million working poor do not think they are poor. They have become accustomed to living on the wire, saving month after month with all kinds of survival strategies, giving up vacations and dentists, and always afraid of losing their footing and falling. Until one month your car breaks down, you have to change your refrigerator, you get a fine or they delay a payment you were counting on, and you’re in trouble. And all without stopping working.
And we still have to give thanks for having a government that, while its social policy is highly criticizable (starting with the defective Minimum Living Income), ha cushioned the damage for many families in this post-pandemic and war time of skyrocketing priceslow wages and unaffordable housing. We could always be worse.
In short, the “work and you’ll be poor” thing no longer works. Since “work and you will be able to become independent”, “work and you will have your own house”, “work and you will raise your family” does not work either… We should still give it a try. Not to poverty, but to work.
#sad #sadder #work
