A CTA report warns that, in December, the minimum wage was reduced in real terms by 14.8% in a single month. Thus, it remained at a value that is 25.9% lower than that of December 2019.
The jump in the inflation level that occurred after the December devaluation has pulverized purchasing power of the wages in general. For any salaried person whose remuneration has not increased in December, The increase in the CPI of 25.5% that month implies a loss of purchasing power of 20.3%. This is stated in a report by the Research and Training Center of the Argentine Republic of the Central Workers of Argentina (CTA).
The report indicates that “the minimum wage does not escape these trendswhich worsens the low real value that it had been having in recent years.” He details that, during the government of Mauricio Macri, lost 25% of its purchasing power and to this was added an additional drop of 10% during the year with the greatest impact of the pandemicwhich was later not recovered.
Last December, after the sharp increase in prices, The minimum wage was reduced in real terms by 14.8% in a single month. It thus remained at a value that results 25.9% lower than that of December 2019 and 42.9% lower than that of the same month of 2015.
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The minimum wage is greatly affected
And, on the other hand, he mentions that, “since the price increase has been higher for food “that for the rest of the goods and services and that this trend worsened in the last month of December, the loss of purchasing power of the minimum wage is greater when it is counted exclusively in food.”
And it is that It lost 36.8% of food purchasing power compared to December 2019 and 50.7% (more than half) compared to the same month in 2015.
If the real loss of the minimum wage had not occurred over the last 8 years, last December it would have been $272,891. That is the value it should have had to not lose compared to December 2015.
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They do not cover the basic basket
“The low values of the minimum wage imply that it is not even enough to purchase the basic food basket corresponding to a “typical family.” The cost of that basket, which defines the limit of indigence, was $240,679 in December; that is, that the $156,000 minimum wage only covered 64.8% of it,” the CTA report warns.
And, in relation to the total basic basket, that defines the poverty line and It was $495,798 In that same month, the minimum wage did not even reach a third of its value.
Source: Ambito
