Nearly 16 percent, specifically 15.6 percent, of the population of the Canary Islands reached the end of the month with "great difficulty" during the year 2020, in addition to the fact that 63.1 percent did not have the capacity to face unforeseen expenses, according to the Living Conditions Survey (ECV) published this Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
In addition, 47.4 percent of Canarians could not afford to go on vacation outside the home for at least one week in 2020, while with regard to delays in payments related to the main residence or installment purchases in the Canary Islands, it reached 23 percent.
These figures are related to the rates of risk of poverty or social exclusion, with the Canary Islands being the second highest, at 36.3 percent, only preceded by Extremadura (38.7%).
Nationally, 10% of the population reached the end of the month with "great difficulty" in 2020, a percentage 2.2 points higher than in 2019, while 35.4% did not have the capacity to face unforeseen expenses, compared to 33.9% the previous year.
In addition, 34.4% of the population could not afford to go on vacation outside the home for at least one week a year, a percentage one point higher than that recorded in 2019.
The National Institute of Statistics emphasizes that, when interpreting the data, it must be taken into account that the ECV collects information on the living conditions of the respondents at the time of the interview, as well as the income of the previous year. Therefore, the INE specifies, the effect of the pandemic on the data of the ECV of 2020 is only partial, since the economic data refers to a previous situation, that of 2019.
Thus, the average income per person, referring to that year 2019, was 12,292 euros, a figure 5.2% higher than that recorded in 2018. "The effect of the pandemic on these data is nil, since they refer to a situation prior to it," the agency insists.
The INE also reports that in 2020 no face-to-face interviews were conducted and were replaced by telephone interviews in order to avoid risks to the health of informants and interviewers. This produced a decrease in the sample size of the ECV. In total, 15,043 households were interviewed, compared to the approximately 18,000 households that would have been reached in a data collection with usual response rates.
Canarians and Andalusians, those who have the most difficulty reaching the end of the month
According to the INE survey, the highest average annual incomes in 2019 were in the Basque Country (15,813 euros per person), Navarra (15,094) and Madrid (14,580), while the lowest were recorded in Extremadura (9,147 euros per person), Murcia (9,850) and the Canary Islands (9,935).
Precisely the Canary Islands (15.6%), together with Andalusia (14.8%) and Extremadura (12.7%) were the autonomous communities with the highest percentages of people who reached the end of the month with "great difficulty" in 2020. The ones with the lowest percentages were Aragon (5.5%), the Basque Country (5.6%) and Navarra (5.9%).
63.1% of the population of the Canary Islands, 46.8% of that of Extremadura and 43.9% of that of Andalusia did not have the capacity to face unforeseen expenses in 2020. On the opposite side were the Basque Country (19%) and Navarra (20.1%).
For their part, the Canary Islands (47.4%), Andalusia (45.4%) and Murcia (45.3%) presented the highest percentages of people who could not afford to go on vacation outside the home for at least one week a year in 2020. The lowest percentages corresponded to the Basque Country (18%), Navarra (21.1%) and Aragon (23.6%).
In the case of households with delays in payments related to the main residence or installment purchases, the Canary Islands (23%), Andalusia (19%) and Murcia (15.5%) presented the highest percentages of population. On the contrary, Aragon (5.4%), Cantabria (6.8%) and Castilla y León (6.9%) recorded the lowest.
