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Torrevieja and local areas Tuesday, March 8th 2016 - Edition 588
Torrevieja still poor As tourists begin to return to the city of Torrevieja for the special Easter Parades and Semana Santa Festivities, Spain's statistics institute still reckon that Torrevieja is the poorest major city in Spain. But at least the city is good company, because believe it or not, Marbella, Fuengirola and Benidorm are all poor as well. All
coastal towns; tourist resorts and holiday destinations preferred by domestic visitors and even some wealthy tourists from other countries. They are cities that show from the outside an image of fun, good life and luxury to stroll along the quays of its ports. And yet, according to the two issues that the INE has published the report Urban
Indicators, they are bottom of the queue when it comes to per capita income of its inhabitants. Torrevieja is the Spanish city with the lowest average income (13,977 euros) of the 109 studied in the report, but also found the bottom of the rankings other tourist cities such as Fuengirola (18,083 euros, fourth from bottom), Benidorm (20,003 euros, seventh), Marbella (eighth, with 20,401 euros) or Torremolinos (tenth but with 20,729 euros per capita income). "We measure the income of people who have their home there, not just those going there for August vacation," explained a spokesman for the INE. "People who live there and there generating income for their homes, work mostly in activities such as catering, cleaning and other tourist oriented services. And salaries in these economic sectors are lower." The controversial report is the publication of the first study of Urban Indicators. However, in the space of a year, earnings in Torrevieja have almost doubled as the City of Salt, which appeared in last place last year with an average income of 7,986 euros has now risen to 13,977. Last year, Torrevieja's Mayor Jose Manuel Dolon, after much prompting from Opposition Parties, eventually sent a strongly worded letter to the president of INE in which he called the report "absurd" and "pseudoestudio". While the INE refuse to believe for a moment that their methodology may be flawed, the review of the methodology has not managed to take the
Torrevieja off the bottom of the table. Torrevieja's Mayor, in his letter last year, described the report as a "nonsense" to divide the income declared to the tax authorities by the number of households. It's a simplistic formula that resort areas like Torrevieja, Marbella and Benidorm, who have many "second homes" that do not generate income as well as a huge foreign population that does not declare their income to the Spanish tax authorities, throws the mythology out of the water. So, while still not recognising that their methodology might be flawed, the INE has changed it somewhat to incorporate "new sources of income" and, above all, the income of foreign residents in each locality. And not only corrected the figures for this year, also last year. With this new calculation, if Pozuelo de Alarc贸n led the classification of income in 2012 to 54 543
euros per capitation revenue, this year the amount allocated to this locality for this year is 72,173 euros. The rise of the income is because of foreign athletes living in the residential areas of this city located on the outskirts of the capital, in the case of this Madrid locality. And yet, despite the change in methodology, Torrevieja continues to close the income table of the 109 cities analysed. Their average income in 2012 have been updated from 7,986 euros to 13,871 euros but the review has not helped to take them off the bottom of the classification. On the other hand, being the poorest city in Spain has kept the prices of a Cafe con Leche or a full English Breakfast at a very attractive price, so maybe local residents should just enjoy their 'poor' status and laugh at others where prices can often be double what one pays in the City of Salt.