adminSpain’s economic recession is taking its toll on children’s well-being with more than a third of Spanish kids living at risk of poverty.
The aid charity Save the Children blamed the mounting child poverty on the government’s crippling austerity measures, saying the austerity policy has worsened the situation.
According to the charity more than 2,8 million or almost 34 percent of Spanish children under-18s lived “at risk of poverty or marginalisation” in 2012.
An official EU measure of various aspects of economic hardship showed that unemployment among Spaniards aged below 25 reached a new high of 56,1 percent.
The figure means that a quarter of the 3,5 million unemployed youth across the eurozone are Spaniards. Spain has been struggling to weather its worst economic crisis since World War Two, which has left millions of Spaniards jobless and unable to make a living. The country began in the third quarter of 2013 to crawl out of its second recession in five years. Its economy collapsed into recession first in the second half of 2008, as a result of the global financial downturn.
Spain must lower its deficit to 4.5 percent in 2013 and 2,8 percent in 2014. However, many economists believe those targets will be difficult to meet amid poor prospects for the country’s economic recovery.
The Spanish government has been sharply criticised over its austerity measures that are hitting the middle and working classes the hardest. — Press TV
Online Reporter