That wages and purchasing power have been one of the key issues in the final stretch of the legislature is evidence. How these salary increases should be done is now one of the axes of the campaign. Yesterday the head of the list of Action, Judith Pallarés, and the candidate for Sant Julià de Lòria of the coalition PS SDP +, Gerard AlÃs, put on the table face to face on Diari TVthe need to apply measures to increase wages as one of the main levers to improve citizens' purchasing power. "We need an increase in the minimum wage to 1,400 euros", asserted Pallarés, who agreed during the debate with AlÃs' approach that "today, with the minimum wage, it is no longer enough to live decently". In this sense, the social democrat set the escalation of housing prices as one of the main determinants of purchasing power. "The main problem today is housing, which in turn causes all measures to increase incomes to be wasted", asserted AlÃs, who insisted on the need to equate the minimum wage to 60% of the average wage .
Positions, those of the two candidates, which on more than one occasion coincided in substance and clashed in form. There were also no big differences when it came to what needed to be done to prevent the public sector from seeing pay rises, while the wages of private sector workers could be left behind. "Sectors should not face each other", asserted AlÃs, who defended the need to have a powerful civil service. "All the measures we propose lead us to have a register of the property; he won't be able to argue with me", acknowledged the leader of Action after raising the possibility of taxing the purchase of second residences or empty flats. "I don't argue with him,
Yes, there was greater disparity of views in relation to the Social Democrats' proposal to lower the IGI to 0% on basic products and increase the general rate to 5%. "I don't think it's time to increase it; we think that the approved fiscal framework must be settled", charged Pallarés, while AlÃs defended that "those who really pay the IGI are the tourists; we do not believe that raising it to 5% will negatively affect all citizens". There was also no agreement on pensions and the reform of the system, a topic that the debate on purchasing power could not ignore. The coalition defended the transfer of contribution points from the health branch to the retirement branch and financing the health system through taxes, while Pallarés opted for a progressive increase in contributions.
However, the two candidates again agreed on the need to "guarantee decent pensions". In this sense, the head of the national list affirmed that it is necessary to "offer incentives in the sense that companies that help workers can have some kind low wages; a person who has worked all his life, but had a low salary, it is necessary to guarantee him that he can live with dignity", by at least equating the pension with the minimum wage once a certain number of years have been contributed.