Who is richer?

In the newspaper ARA, a report about young people struggling to survive in Ceuta, who came from Morocco by swimming, gives a voice to a young man who “doesn’t want to return to Morocco, where he assures it’s impossible to earn a living. That the salary in his country is low”.

In Spain, taxes and salaries are the same for everyone. A self-employed person in Catalonia will pay a minimum of 300 euros per month, and a self-employed person in Andalusia will too. A supermarket worker, a gardener, will earn the same here as there. But the services available in Catalonia (cafes, restaurants, housing, clothing...) are much more expensive than those available elsewhere. Catalonia is a “tourist” destination. The price paid for a coffee is proportional to the price paid for having a terrace. A coffee in our region is very expensive, depending on where. Very. Above all, there is the price of housing. If all the millionaires in Europe want to live in Barcelona, Girona, Mallorca, Menorca, and Ibiza, the Costa Brava, we natives can’t fit.

This young man is right about the low salaries in Morocco, but we should look at it globally. Let’s imagine a salary of 2,000 euros in Catalonia; the salary of a teacher, plumber, or cook. They pay at least 800 euros for housing (I’m saying very little). The phone, electricity, and water, weekly groceries, much more expensive than elsewhere, transport, expensive and poor, for the car or motorcycle they might be paying for. This is if they live alone. If they don’t live alone and have children, they will share expenses, but they will have new ones like extracurricular activities, gasoline derived from taking the children to compete, a tutor, clothes for growing people... And the self-employed, if applicable. A Moroccan might have a very low salary, say 800 euros, but be richer than a Catalan, because after deducting housing and food, as well as—let’s say—the gym, leisure, and transport, they have more left over. What I mean by this is that we should look at the fundamental issue: what does it cost to rent or buy an apartment where this young man lives.