Spain Wants Young People To Leave Home – And Is Offering Them $300 A Month To Do So

Spain is planning to offer young people 250 euros ($289) a month to incentivize them to move out of their parents’ house and rent. 

Spanish President Pedro Sanchez announced the proposal on Tuesday, as part of the government’s 2022 budget.  

People aged between 18 and 35 years old, earning less than 23,725 euros a year, would be eligible for the rental bonus, if the budgetary proposal is approved by parliament. In addition, the most vulnerable families may be offered additional subsidies covering up to 40% of their rent, according to the government announcement. 

“We are talking about a fair economic recovery and this means facilitating access to housing, especially for those who are most vulnerable to precariousness, such as our young people,” said Sanchez. He was speaking at an event organized by the United Nations Human Settlement Programme, known as UN-Habitat. 

Eurostat data from 2020 showed that people in Spain moved out of their parents’ house at around 30 years old on average, four years later than the typical age for the whole of the European Union. 

A report by U.S. thinktank Brookings, published in April, stated that a “strong policy bias toward homeownership” in Spain meant that less than one in four of the country’s households rented their homes. 

However, the report noted that there had been a gradual growth in demand for rentals, as job insecurity and low salaries prevented young people from buying homes, as well as more caution from banks to offer mortgages. 

According to data published by Eurostat, a one-bedroom apartment in the Spanish capital of Madrid cost around 1,000 euros a month to rent in 2020. Separate data showed that last year, a single person without children in Spain earned around 21,241 euros, slightly below the EU average of 24,005 euros. 








SOURCE: CNBC
IMAGE SOURCE: PIXABAY