We probably have the State and taxpayers covering costs that should be borne by employers (including the State itself), in the form of better salaries. With the prices of housing and food being what they are today in Portugal, as well as electricity, fuel and many other fundamental goods and services, the only sustainable way to give people access to fundamental goods and freedom of decision-making is to increase wages. It is true that the minimum wage has almost doubled in a decade, but so has what can be bought with it… So-called “average” salaries in Portugal lead the most qualified to work abroad, where they can easily earn double or triple, without increased costs in fundamental goods. And it has therefore become decisive for the functioning of the economy and tourism to receive many immigrants, who flee from the most extreme poverty to a slightly better one, redistributed by agriculture and hotels and restaurants and by the services of the new digital economy, the uberization of the daily lives of the poor served by the almost destitute.
How to increase salaries? As long as a large part of the economy is made up of businesses that operate and continue to pay 900 euros per month, such as tourism, agriculture and part of the industry, it will be difficult. As long as inequality is so evident and permitted, with work taxed almost twice as much as dividends, the qualitative leap that has been talked about for decades will take a long time. Even with all the improvements seen, and there are many, it cannot help but be extraordinary that, for example, even with the brutal increase in public spending on the National Health Service in recent years, never have so many Portuguese people (and foreigners in Portugal) felt the need to take out private health insurance, thus paying double for access to healthcare. There are many reasons to take out health insurance, but the unpredictability and apparent randomness of service levels in the NHS is certainly one of them. Increasingly, the SNS seems to be a service for the poor or for the most extreme cases, which the private sector also doesn’t like. It is an unequal system in terms of access and supply, depending on whether you are a few kilometers above or below.
Qualification, especially at the level of higher education, and obtaining an adequate and remunerative job, by expanding the economy and the State, were decisive elements in changing the structurally poor and illiterate society that arrived on April 25th. Half a century later, there are several objective achievements to be celebrated. But the injustice, which too many feel today as they find themselves socially and economically blocked, fuels an underlining of anger towards any power that presents itself to them. No matter how hard they work, no matter how much they study, no matter how much they search – there is always something, a lot, missing from fulfilling their dream. It is not for lack of alternatives that they feel attracted to those who sell them anger or selfishness on television and social media. It is because they understand that this is the best alternative.
Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon