Look at European consumption: what makes this European country, which has always been an optimist, fall into consumption depression?

According to the main conclusions of the global risk analysis conducted by Cadena SER and El País, nothing scares the Spanish more than rising prices. More than nine-tenths of the respondents (90.7%) believe that rising inflation poses a threat to a great extent or to a considerable extent. The rising cost of living caused 57.7% of the respondents to feel pessimistic and depressed, and 22.6% of the respondents felt depressed or anxious.

According to the latest data of “Financial Ability Survey” published by the Bank of Spain, in 2021, 25% of the population lived in families whose expenses exceeded their income in the past 12 months, among which 6% of the population could maintain their expenses for less than a week without debt or moving. From 2016 to 2021, the proportion of individuals who could maintain their consumption for less than three months without losing their main sources of income dropped by 4 percentage points, from 31% to 27%. The number of people who claimed that they had resources for three to six months increased from 13% to 14%, and another 57% had resources to maintain these expenses for at least six months. More than half of the households whose expenditure is higher than their income (55%) make up the difference through savings, and the second most important source of financing is informal credit (35%).

As far as the economic situation of ordinary families is concerned, there has been little significant change in recent months. At present, only 7.8% of Spaniards claim that they “save a lot of money every month”, most people claim that they save a little money every month (40.3%), and a large number of people say that they can just last until the end of the month (36.2%). However, 15.7% people are still in a more fragile economic situation: 9.9% people say they have to “use their savings” to pay for their expenses, and another 5.8% people are forced to bear debts.

According to these data, it is reasonable for Spaniards to be more worried about the prices of daily necessities. Secondly, people are most concerned about war conflicts and energy and resource crises (more than 85% of the respondents regard them as threats). A large number of Spaniards believe that international terrorism (81.1%), climate change and natural disasters (80.2%) are urgent risks.