GDP per Capita in Southern Europe
Living in Portugal, I always had the feeling that we never fully recovered since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. For at least three years, the topic on the news was always “the crisis”, that seemed to never dissipate. Then came the I.M.F. (International Monetary Fund) to help stabilize the government situation via austerity measures that choked the country for years and delayed the recovery. This, together with the lack of deep, long-term planning to improve the weight of the industrial sector, has led to a slow growth of the country and to the emigration of young graduates.
Take a look at the GDP per capita, adjusted for inflation (if you trust the official CPI and inflation numbers…), and you can see that only recently the productivity of Portugal (per capita) has recovered. My feeling was not very off… And it’s even worse for the other countries in the south of Europe.
It is no surprise, then, that the ordinary citizen feels like their purchasing power has not kept up or improved over the years – because it hasn’t. For people that didn’t have any investments, this has been the situation. Recently (2021-2022), the cost of living and housing has skyrocketed.
Source (World Bank): https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=PT-GR-IT-ES
Some more information in video format:
Video: The Big Lie of the Southern European Economic “Boom”
Channel: Explained with Dom
Video: Why did Portugal’s economy boom? (WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW!)
Channel: Jabbrell