A generation sacrificed
Financial crisis in the euro zone has sparked a social crisis, as scores of families are pushed into poverty by punishing austerity measures
Crushed by an austerity squeeze and towering unemployment, millions of Europeans joined the ranks of the newly poor this year in a crisis that showed no mercy for the old, women or children.
An arc of misery spread pitilessly across southern Europe’s middle classes, engulfing bailed-out nations Greece and Portugal and rocking heavyweights such as the euro zone’s number four and three economies, respectively, Spain and Italy.
“The black hole is getting bigger and bigger,” fretted Mercedes Gonzalez, a 52-year-old Spaniard who has less than €800 (HK$8,004) a month to raise her unemployed family in the Madrid suburb of Fuenlabrada.
In July, she was still pocketing the monthly state aid of €426 for the long-term unemployed. But the benefit was slashed to €360 last month, she said, and in the meantime a September 1 rise in sales tax lifted the price of food and other regular bills.
“Things are really getting worse, we can’t breathe already,” said the energetic unemployed saleswoman whose voice betrayed weariness as she contemplated caring for herself, her carpenter husband and two of her three adult sons, who are all out of work.
Spain is displaying all the signs of a major social crisis, with one in four workers unemployed, an unprecedented austerity squeeze by the state, cuts to education and health care, and thousands of indebted families thrown out of their homes and into the streets.