IN WORKING-CLASS southern Madrid there are queues for food at community centres and parish soup kitchens. Caritas, a Catholic charity, reports a surge in demand for its help. Covid-19 has exposed holes in Spain’s welfare state, just as the slump after 2008 did. This time, though, the government is trying to plug the gaps. Some of the aid is temporary: almost 4m furloughed workers have been getting 70% of their wages paid by the state, which has also made emergency payments to 1.2m self-employed people.
On May 29th the government, a left-wing coalition headed by Pedro Sánchez, approved something big […]
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