Here’s a politically charged word that’s trending in Spain currently and is used by Spaniards when criticising the government and people they consider to be lazy.
Paguitas is a diminutive of the word pagas in Spanish, which means payments.
However, it is understood to refer more specifically to welfare benefits or state aid, which in Spanish can also be called subsidios, prestaciones or ayudas.
Paguitas is used in a colloquial, disapproving manner to refer to people who ‘live off’ benefits, whether it be true or not.
So rather than receive 12 or 14 pagas (payments) as workers in Spain do, they get paguitas: little payments.
The Spanish right often accuses the Socialist government of encouraging people to live off these handouts, such as the ingreso mínimo vital or IMV (minimum vital income), which can be €773 for a jobless person in a situation of vulnerability.
In the current context, you’re also likely to hear the term paguitas to refer to immigrants who supposedly live off any social benefits, even undocumented ones.
This is in fact not true – unregistered migrants cannot apply for that or any other social benefits.
And with regards to how many legal migrants get the IMV, it’s only 17.5 percent of the total, while the rest are Spanish.
But back to the term paguita; if you google the word you’ll come across all kinds of posts and videos which criticise how the Spanish government purportedly gives money out willy-nilly to people who don’t want to work, while hard-working Spaniards get trampled by the taxman.
“Work or live off benefits? The ‘paguitas’ debate divides Spain” reads the headline of an article on Antena 3 news.
There are many people in Spain who do believe that the country’s left-wing government maintains a large proportion of the population on handouts to exert control over them and make them dependent on the state.
From the €400 culture bonus for those who turn 18 to the non-contributory pension for people who never worked, the idea is that small payments or paguitas are what keeps them just about satisfied enough to keep voting for left-wing parties.
Is all this true? Is it too easy to get paguitas in Spain and does it create a lazy society?
Well, it usually depends on who you ask and what their political inclinations or life experiences are, but it’s undeniable that under the left-wing coalition government Spain has had for the past 8 years there has been a greater emphasis on social benefits.
It’s also worth noting that when discussing the under-the-table handouts that politicians or other people in power get, the terms most often used in Spain are mordidas (bites) and sobres (envelopes).
Paguita is a word you won’t find in the Spanish dictionary but you’ll definitely overhear in conversations at bars and in the streets of Spain.
Examples:
No es verdad que los inmigrantes sólo quieren venir a España para cobrar paguitas.
It’s not true that immigrants want to come to Spain to live off benefits.
España es el país de las paguitas. Así nos va.
Spain is the land of welfare benefits. No wonder things are going as they are.
