In a grim reminder that purchasing power is still way below pre-crisis levels in many countries, the OECD has issued its new Dashboard of Household Indicators – highlighting Portugal’s sorry position.
While growth in household disposable income has, on average, outpaced the rise in GDP for the OECD area since the onset of the financial crisis in 2007, Portugal is among the countries that has not been so lucky.
Chief statistician Martine Durand explained that the country joined in this situation by Austria, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain.
What it means in bite-sized terms is that family incomes here have dropped 5.4% since 2007, while GDP has also dipped by 4.4%.
It is a criticism used recently by Socialist leader António Costa in the head-to-head election debate with prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho.
Costa held up a bar chart to show how GDP had not dropped in any of the administration’s since António Guterres – not even that of the PSD’s ‘pet hate’ José Sócrates.
As Durand stressed, Portugal’s situation is the opposite of what has happened in the average of OECD countries.
Denmark, for example, has seen family incomes increase by 5.9% since 2007.
Commenting on the report, national tabloid Correio da Manhã claimed the data “shows that Portugal is a long way from returning to levels of national wealth before the crisis”.
