In Bar El Rasca, in the Glorieta del Clavel district (population 59,833), one of Aranjuez’s most humble neighborhoods, dozens of football team pennants hang on the wall. A couple of workers are drinking a bottle while a retired couple is having breakfast reading the newspaper. Television spits out the ugly opinions of various commentators. “Aranjuez is now a dead city; There is no longer anything but tourism. there is a lot People who don’t work but don’t want to work either. Talida, who has owned it for 14 years, complains, “I’m looking for someone and I’m finally here alone.”
“There used to be everything here, lots of industries, trailer companies, boiler companies, locksmiths, sugar factories… and now nothing, not even tourism. They come and go in half an hour. Before that it was something else. There were 1,100 bars!” Antonio, a retiree, remembers when. He had to take care of 11 tables on the terrace of the bar where he worked and had no second vacancies. “There was purchasing power before, but they took the factories and this place became a cemetery.”
Currently, Aranjuez has the third highest unemployment in municipalities in Madrid with a population of over 40,000 (10.78%), surpassed only by Arganda del Rey and Parla. According to INE, 7.6% of Aranjuez population is at risk of social exclusion As eldiario.es timely reported, it has to survive on an income of less than 5,000 euros per year.
With these data, the trend confirmed by research this week by the Spanish Association of Social Services Managers and Managers is paradoxical; This indicates that Aranjuez, with a population of more than 20,000, is the town in Spain that spends the least money on social spending. whole country in 2021. : 31.10 euros per person. It is the lowest figure among 37 municipalities deemed inadequate in social services and social promotion, followed by Galapagar, Mérida and Piélagos.
The association, which includes more than 300 social service professionals at the municipal level, considers municipalities that spend less than 60% of their average expenditure on Social Services as “poor”. In this case, there is an additional situation, which is that the national trend is to increase social expenditures in municipalities -it rose to 88 euros this year-, In the case of Aranjuez, it fell 26 cents compared to 2020.
So what’s going on in the last municipality south of Madrid? Why is it one of the settlements with the lowest income and last in social benefits? “I’ve seen it in the press and I really don’t know,” Pedro apologizes, shrugging over a cup of coffee. “I can tell you about my situation. The woman who is our helper at home, who is alone with her children, puts up all kinds of obstacles to not pay the Minimum Sting Income. Finally they told him that there were people who used to live there and no longer calculate the rent for their house. Let’s see what difficulties there will be, how many people will not be like him,” he wonders. “If that’s what Aranjuez is, it’s already become a suburban town. People go to Toledo to work at logistics companies, there’s no more jobs here,” he said.
A nearby mansion is surrounded by three-story building blocks known as ‘dwarfs’. “They were public protection floors when they were built a long time ago, and they are apparently very short,” explains one resident of the area. Various thirties They are playing football and on one side of the square, Moroccan Nabil is changing wheels in his car. “I asked for help with the lease and waited and nothing happened,” she recalls.
“There are people here in this neighborhood who are in financial trouble, and I know situations where it’s difficult to get agency help,” says Jacinto, who is about 25 years old and sells cars. and goes to the neighborhood nursing home to see a family member.
At Casa San José, a religious cult devoted to social work, they distribute 20 to 30 shopping baskets a week of basic items, including meat and fish, to vulnerable families. They get help from Mercadona, the Food Bank, and the City Council itself. Dionisia, one of the sect’s leaders, assures her that she didn’t realize that more and more families were asking for help lately. “Sometimes it’s more people, sometimes less.” What is clear is that they are given all the help they ask from the City Council to complete their shopping bag. “They didn’t say no to anything. We are very grateful,” he appreciates. Regarding the municipality’s social situation, he explains that he is having trouble finding cooks on their own. “We got it in him, but many told us that they preferred to collect the minimum income and then work, but in black, they did clumsy jobs.”
Meanwhile, in the city council headed by PP and Ciudadanos, they doubt the credibility of the work and explain that this year’s social play has increased compared to the previous year. Councilor for Social Services and Family Mercedes Rico assures them that they need to analyze the study in depth and claims that he believes the lousy data for Aranjuez is due to the inclusion of municipal social spending in various budget headings – Women, Migration helps home…- and it is not counted as a single item.
They point out from the Spanish Association of Social Services Administrators and Administrators, which conducted the study, that all the data they use are “official data, data that the municipal councils themselves give to the Ministry of Finance.” liquidation of budgets”, according to Manuel Fuentesstudy coordinator.
Specifically, it is functional item 23, which combines social services subject to expert scrutiny with social promotion. Aranjuez is the worst-rated country in all of Spain, but it is not the first year to be negatively evaluated as it has fluctuated between 29 and 31.36 euros per capita since 2016. nothing specific; this is his historical journey”.
Fuentes reiterates that the study couldn’t be more precise because all of the City Councils’ social spending—elderly policies, home assistance, old-age policies, welfare, emergency aid, child policies, gender, immigration….—have to go in. this game. He even appreciates that if there were a consortium calculating these expenses in other departments, it would not have “fitted the public accounting”. and among municipalities with low social spending, this is certainly “a very fabricated excuse,” he adds.
Despite this, the coordinator of the work on social expenditures, in general, the municipal councils. “absolutely stable” social policies and therefore national average expenditures have increased.
According to the aforementioned study, the community with the largest number of Town Halls excels in spending on social services. 100 euros per person– Andalusia (18), followed by Catalonia (11), Valencian Community (8), Basque Country (4), Castilla y Leon (3), Aragón (2) and Asturias, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Castilla La Mancha, Galicia and Madrid with a single municipality.
Source: Informacion
James Sean is a writer for “Social Bites”. He covers a wide range of topics, bringing the latest news and developments to his readers. With a keen sense of what’s important and a passion for writing, James delivers unique and insightful articles that keep his readers informed and engaged.