Catalonia is growing, but not for everyone

Catalonia is growing. Its GDP is growing at a faster pace than most European countries, and employment has recovered strongly after the years of crisis. But that dynamism does not reach everyone.: Every year, more and more Catalan households are struggling to make ends meet – today it's already one in ten. Wages have risen, yes, but the cost of living has done so moreWhile the economy expands, the purchasing power of a large part of the population stagnates. And this imbalance explains why, despite growth, we don't live better. But this reality is not the same for everyone. While one part of the population sees their salary lose purchasing power, another continues to accumulate income and profits. The latest report from the CNMV is a good example of this: the management positions of companies in The Ibex earns 55 times more than its employeesThis growing gap is not only a symptom of inequality: it calls into question how the benefits of growth are distributed. The real challenge is not to grow more, but to grow equitably.

The paradox of an economy that grows without improving the lives of the majority has a central explanation: the mismatch between economic growth and the evolution of real wages. Wages have grown, but below productivity and, above all, the cost of living. Over the past twenty years, nominal wages in Catalonia—the figures we see on our paychecks—have risen, but without keeping pace with prices. The result is that real wages—the purchasing power of our salaries—haveThey have remained practically stagnant and, in many years, have actually declined.This loss of purchasing power explains why, despite economic growth, many families feel like they're not making progress.

But the impact of this wage stagnation is not homogeneous, nor are paychecks. The growing gap between the highest salaries and those of the vast majority has much to do with the dual nature of the labor market, a structural characteristic of the Catalan and Spanish economies. At one extreme are those with stable jobs, high salaries, and negotiating power—where a large portion of salary increases accumulate—; at the other, workers with temporary or interim contracts, low salaries, and fewer opportunities for advancement. This internal asymmetry explains why the loss of purchasing power is not evenly distributed and why inequalities tend to consolidate over time, amplified by persistent gaps such as gender, age, and origin.

Faced with this reality, tools such as the increase in the minimum wage (SMI) can alleviate some of the pressure on the lowest wages. However, despite having grown by almost 50% since 2018, the SMI remains far from the real cost of living and does not, on its own, resolve the structural inequalities in the labor market. As long as productivity and profits grow faster than wages, the distribution of growth will remain unequal. The challenge, therefore, is not only to distribute growth more effectively, but also to generate more. If we continue as we are now, with a model of low productivity and concentrated profits, we will neither reduce inequalities nor make growth felt by the majority.