The work of the consultative commission for the analysis of the interprofessional minimum wage (SMI) is not limited to recommending an increase in the floor wage. This year’s report, as in previous years, makes an in-depth reading of other aspects, such as the comparison of the Spanish SMI in relation to Europe or the diagnosis of who receives this income. It also includes a multitude of studies which, in general, see positive effects of the increase in the SMI on the economy: they speak of a “new scientific consensus” which appreciates “a clear impact on the income of the workers concerned without significant negative impact on employment, unemployment, the activity rate or transitions in the labor market”.
In addition to highlighting these positive aspects, experts also work to point out issues that deserve attention. One of the most striking points indicated by the report published this Friday – which recommends an increase of 3.1% if the SMI is not imposed and 4.7% if it is – is that the rapid increase in the SMI in recent years concentrates many people near the minimum wage, “with the potential danger that experienced or medium-skilled workers fall into this bracket”. The SMI has increased by 61% since 2018, going from 736 to 1,184 euros gross per month in 14 payments in 2025. This is an increase which exceeds inflation by almost forty points.
By average qualification we generally mean vocational training studies. But it is worth noting that in another section the report also highlights a higher incidence of SMI among higher education graduates: “The analysis of beneficiaries shows that SMI is more common among young people, women and foreigners. However, the higher incidence of SMI has also led to a greater presence of people over 35 years old, with medium and high qualifications.
As experts indicate, this phenomenon is known in the economic literature as grouping or a grouping. “The minimum wage should only be the relevant wage reference for unskilled or inexperienced workers,” underlines the text. This phenomenon, the experts add, has “potential implications for human resources management that deserve to be studied.”
Various economic institutions have warned about this phenomenon. In a recent report, the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef) indicated that it noted a “concentration of workers around the new threshold (of the SMI) and at levels directly above”. Thus, while in 2018 3.5% of workers contributed to the minimum base – like those who receive the SMI -, in 2023 there were 7.4%, more than double. And those who earn barely more than the minimum wage are progressing even more strongly: in 2018, 7.9% of workers contributed 125% of the minimum wage and in 2023, they were 22.8%.
Impact on collective bargaining
One of the main arguments of advocates for raising the minimum wage is that it helps raise other wages. The theory is that by improving the salary floor, it increases the rest of the compensation. Experts point to a recent survey by the Barcelona Institute of Economics on increases in 2017 and 2019, the latter being the largest in a decade, at 21.5%. “They show that the effects extended beyond the workers directly affected, detecting wage increases across a large part of the distribution,” the commission says.
They extract that “collective negotiation acts as a channel for transmitting increases in the SMI, since the agreements concerned revise their salary scales, generating a carry-over effect towards higher levels”. But, at the same time, Labor experts point out that “although there is evidence of some upward trend, this appears to be limited.”
“This invites us to ask why increases in the minimum wage do not spread more strongly across the entire wage structure,” add the Labor experts. To explain this, they refer to several reasons contained in the aforementioned study by the Institut d’Economia de Barcelona: they indicate that current regulations allow many workers to have conditions governed by agreements worse than those that would actually apply to them for their activity; the existence of more precarious workers, such as temporary workers, subcontractors or illegal immigrants, which “limits the capacity to transmit wage increases”; and the “massive use of contractual figures such as internships or scholarships”. This last factor, experts believe, is “a channel of downward competition which can also stop the propagation of increases in the SMI to the rest of the labor market”.
Effect on the lowest categories
In the same vein, the experts emphasize the effect on collective negotiations: “The committee also wishes to express its concern about the impact that the increase in the SMI to current levels may have had on the agreed minimum wages and the possibility that many of them have lost their relevance because they are below this salary.”
The experts’ report refers to a Eurofund study which compiles information on minimum wages negotiated in agreements in low-wage sectors. “It is estimated that in Spain 40% of the 67 agreements studied established minimum wages lower than the SMI. In any case, for this same date, the average difference between the minimum wage of the agreement and the SMI was positive, reaching 16%”, add the experts. They also refer to a revision by the UGT of 514 agreements and revisions of salary scales published in 2025: “The SMI of that same year would affect 209.40.7%. This impact would occur in all types of sectors, some of them, very far from what are traditionally considered to be the areas of activity most affected by the SMI.”
The commission gives some examples of sectors which, a prioriit is difficult to get closer to the SMI: “Among these agreements, there would be the » “It is important to emphasize”, add the specialists, “that the SMI is not, and must not be, the only tool to improve working conditions, and it is essential, once the mandate of the European Social Charter has been fulfilled (reaching 60% of the average net salary), to promote other tools, such as social dialogue, collective bargaining or training”.
Absorption of more
The specialists summoned by Labor address one of the problems facing the ministry and the CEOE, the possibility that the ministry eliminates the possibility for companies to absorb increases in the SMI with the abolition of bonuses. Academics want “robust estimates” of the percentage of people receiving SMI and that’s exactly what’s happening to them. This is, they say, a practice “about which trade union organizations have shown concern because its application is sometimes carried out in a discretionary and non-transparent manner”. “This would mean that the increase in the SMI, de facto, could not result in all cases in an increase in the salary received, but only in a modification of its components,” add the specialists, who also call for a statistical improvement to know the characteristics of SMI beneficiaries.
The commission also calls for “improving access to salary statistics, including administrative sources” and places “emphasis” on the need to improve “knowledge of the overall effects of the SMI, both in terms of employment, an area which has so far focused research, and in other areas such as productivity, business investment or non-wage working conditions”.
Who reports on the SMI?
The authors of the report are Begoña Cueto (rapporteur and professor at the University of Oviedo), Elena Bárcena (University of Málaga), Javier Muñoz (general director of economic policy and representative of the Ministry of Economy), Luis Ayala (UNED), Alberto del Pozo (UGT), Libertad González (Pompu Fabra University), Rafael Muñoz (University of Salamanca), José Ignacio Pérez (former professor of economics at the University of Salamanca). Carlos III University), César Veloso (deputy director of the Office of the First Vice President of the Government and Minister of Finance), Luis Zarapuz (CC OO), Mariña Fernández and Antonio García (both from the Ministry of Labor). Businessmen voluntarily do not participate in the expert committee and question its recommendations. This task force also recommended increases in 2025, 2023 and 2022, but not in 2024.
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