MADRID—Gabriel Tuesta moved along in the line of cleanly dressed people stretching out the door of the Santa Micaela soup kitchen here on a recent evening. Laid off in May 2010 from his job as an administrative assistant at a now-defunct transportation company, the 44-year-old was eager to eat his first meal of the day. "I never imagined I'd be here," he said. "There's a saying: In hard times, put on a happy face." On the menu that evening were penne pasta with meat sauce, fresh plums and chocolate bars. Enlarge Image Demotix Spaniards marched in the capital on Oct. 15 to protest government cutbacks to health and education spending. Spain has to find cuts, but has been loath to cut jobless benefits. Spain's jobless rate, hovering above 20% since early 2010, reached its highest rate in 15 years in the third quarter, the government reported Friday, at 21.5%—driven up in part by public-sector cuts. The number of households without any income also hit record levels, rising to 559,900, or 3.2% of Spain's families, the government said. One reason: Three years into the economic crisis, more and more jobless Spaniards are seeing their unemployment benefits expire. The Spanish social safety net for the long-term unemployed runs out more quickly than in many Western European countries, and its unemployment rate is the highest in the European Union. Most wage-replacement benefits in Spain—which top out at about €1,400 ($2,000) monthly for workers with two children—run out or significantly decline by 24 months, compared with three to five years in some countries, including Belgium and Denmark. Mr. Tuesta's benefits expired late last year. More on Europe Doubts Rise on EU Deal China Plays Down Expectations on Europe Bailout Fitch: Greek Debt Deal a Default The government on Friday announced plans to spend an additional €24 billion ($34 billion) on job development from 2012 through 2014. Those expenses could require cuts elsewhere. The euro zone, trying to contain a debt crisis, wants Madrid to slash its budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2013, from more than 9% last year. Even as it has frozen pensions and cut public-sector salaries, Spain's government has been loath to trim assistance for the jobless. Still, in August, 71% of Spain's jobless collected unemployment benefits, compared with more than 79% in the summer of 2010, according to the Spanish Labor Ministry. As more people see their benefits expire, demand for food assistance is soaring. When Mr. Tuesta's €425 a month in unemployment benefits expired late last year, he had to move into a friend's bare, vacated apartment. He avoids cooking to hold down his electricity bills. And he comes to Santa Micaela nearly every day for a hot meal. "You survive however you can," he said. That such travails are evident here in Mr. Tuesta's lower middle-class neighborhood is a sign of the pressure on Spain's government. "Clearly, at least since the 1980s, never has an economic crisis had such intense social effects" in Spain, says Miguel Laparra, a social-policy professor at the Public University of Navarre. A worsening jobs outlook could make the government's deficit-fighting efforts, which both major-party candidates have promised to tackle after general elections in late November, more difficult. Enlarge Image Sustaining sufficient support for economic reforms will be tough if Spaniards perceive that "reform is largely another name for allowing an increasing number of workers to fall into destitution," says Paul Swaim, an economist who focuses on labor-market issues with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Lissette Zevallos, 36, lost her longtime job as a home-health assistant in March 2009. Though she has since held a couple of temporary jobs, two years later her unemployment benefits ended. Her savings are nearly drained, she says, and this summer she moved into a bedroom in an apartment of one-room rentals. She shares the space with her mother, who has health problems. She says she can't turn to extended family for help. "They have their problems," Ms. Zevallos says. She adds, with tears in her eyes, "Every morning I tell myself, 'This is temporary.' Otherwise I couldn't go on." Private organizations are boosting their aid efforts to meet demand where public services are overwhelmed. Spain's Red Cross restarted its food-assistance program in 2009, after shutting it down four years earlier, says Fernando Cuevas, who directs antipoverty efforts for the organization. The organization projects that the number of people receiving its food supplement, which includes heads of households who distribute to their own families, will increase more than 20% in 2011 to 900,000, on top of a 34% rise last year. Mr. Tuesta, who is divorced with no children, said he never needed to seek help because he always had work. Now he is trying to make the best of his newly austere circumstances. A lawyer friend has been giving him some cash to do odd jobs. In July, he enrolled in a government-sponsored training program to work at an airport. "I'll go anywhere for a job," he said
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