Spain's New "Employed Poor"

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Campaigning for his center-right party recently, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy talked of Spain's recovery in glowing terms, at one point saying that no one was even "talking about unemployment anymore." But local and regional elections this spring were humbling for his Popular Party and for the center-left Socialist party, which lost control of cities throughout Spain, including Zaragoza and the capital, Madrid...

And in the long run, the recovery faces many challenges, including a growing group of aging unemployed who may never work again and a middle-aged work force that left school early for high-paying construction jobs, which disappeared when Spain's real estate bubble burst in 2008. Such work is unlikely to return soon, but that part of the labor force is trained for little else.

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The economy here in Zaragoza, a city of about 700,000 in northern Spain, is doing relatively well compared with the rest of the country. Even so, recent elections brought in a mayor, Pedro Santisteve, whose party is affiliated with Podemos, the new leftist party. Mr. Santisteve bluntly calls Spain's economic recovery "a big lie." He says there are 25,000 families in Zaragoza living on less than €300 a month, and 31,000 who cannot afford the electricity they need. In the last year, more than 500 families have been evicted from their homes.