The Christmas holidays will increase the Balearic citizens’ spending this year by 17.7% with respect to 2021 as consumption no longer suffering from the effects of the confinement caused by the health pandemic and also due to the increase in prices caused by inflation. This is one of the main conclusions by the Quaderns Gadeso report for December, which analyzes the economic effects of Christmas in the different social sectors of our community.
In absolute numbers, the total expected expenditure per inhabitant on the islands during the holidays is 765 euros, almost 18% more than a year ago, of which gifts for children, with 35.3% of the total, and food, with 33.5%, represent the most significant expenses for families.
Christmas expenses
All the categories show considerable variations with respect to the 2021 holiday period. Thus, gifts for children represent an expenditure, in absolute numbers, of 270 euros per inhabitant, 22.3% more than a year ago. The purchase of food for the Christmas holidays involves an investment of 256 euros per person, 21.2% more than in 2021. For other gifts we will spend 73 euros (15.1% more); 63 euros on leisure (a 17.5% increase); 60 euros on clothing (1.7% more) and 43 euros on other undefined expenses (11.6% less than in 2021)
However, Gadeso stresses that these expenses “are disparate according to social class,” although in all cases the spending forecast exceeds last year’s average. “If things do not change, the January slope after Christmas may become Everest for many people,” the report stresses. In this case, it stresses that the economic situation “does not affect everyone equally”. And the fact is that, according to the surveys, the expenditure expected by the so-called upper classes of society “is almost nine times higher” than the consumption of the lower classes, made up of uneducated young people, immigrants without a social network or the long-term unemployed, among others, can afford.
In this regard, Gadeso stresses that two major divides. On the one hand, the “big jump” that is recorded between the lower classes, which will record an average expenditure of 229 euros, and people belonging to the lower middle classes, with a consumption forecast of 464 euros. The middle class will also experience an increase in its budget compared to 2021, with an average expenditure of 694 euros. The second “big gap” is between the middle class, on the one hand, and the upper and upper middle classes, on the other, which will spend 1,215 and 1,947 euros per person, respectively.
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