It's official: purchasing power has taken a big euro-era hit

Official figures are confirming what Spanish citizens had suspected for years: that adopting the euro caused a general price rise that has not been matched by a similar wage hike. As the 10th anniversary of the replacement of the peseta approaches, a report by a major consumer organization based on official statistics shows that salaries rose by an average 14 percent over the last decade, while the price of food went up by 48 percent, housing by 66 percent and transportation by 45 to 58 percent.

The OCU consumers' organization said in its report that the most glaring proof of this gap between what employees earn and the cost of living is the market basket. In an April 2001 study, this representative basket cost families an average of 4,600 euros annually; in May 2011 the same set of products cost 6,800 euros a year, reflecting a 48-percent price rise. These figures are based on a comparison of supermarket prices as reported by OCU once a year.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which tracks changes in the price of goods and services bought by households, registered an accumulated rise of 32 percent between 2002 and 2011. Yet data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) show that salaries only rose an average of 14 percent in the last 10 years.

Some of the most notable price hikes affected basic food products such as bread (85 percent), eggs (114 percent), milk (48 percent), rice (45 percent), oil (33 percent) and potatoes (116 percent). Public transportation also experienced significant increases: train fares are 45 percent more expensive than in 2002 and taking the bus costs 48 percent more; meanwhile, fuel is 82 percent more costly than it was before the euro.

Only a few products went down in price over the last decade, namely technology products. Television sets, music systems and DVD players are 62 percent less expensive than in the days of the peseta, and large household appliances went down four percent.