A family made up of two adults and two minors old needed in february an income of $690,901.51 so as not to be considered poor, a 15.8% more than in January, The National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) reported this Tuesday. It is worth noting that the cost of the Total Basic Basket (CBT) It does not include the value of a rental home.
The official report indicates that the cost of the products that make up the Basic Food Basket (CBA) rose 13.1% in the second month of the yearwhich determined that a family made up of two adults and two minor children required income of $322,851.20 to avoid falling into poverty.
In this way, the CBA was located almost at the same levels as the February inflation, which was 13.2%, below what was expected by private consulting firms, while the CBT exceeded the CPI by almost 3 percentage points.
In the last 12 months, both baskets far exceeded the inflation accumulated in that period. The CBT climbed 290.2%, while the CBA quadrupled: it shot up 301.14%, compared to a CPI of 276.2% in that same period.
Before both data (baskets and CPI) were published, President Javier Milei had stated that The downward trend that had begun last month would continue. “It seems that it is below 15%, which is a big number,” emphasized the president, who nevertheless acknowledged that he is “fully aware of what is happening” in the country “but correcting a hundred years is not free.”
He also predicted that in the coming months inflation could reach one digit: “If you add the increase in prepaid payments, which is a one-time increase, and rates, which are once and for all, in that context, you are going to have to subtract almost 5 points from the number, when “You see that, you’re going to talk about single-digit inflation.”
Looking ahead to the coming months, a report by the consulting firm EcoGo estimated that The rates for electricity, gas and public transport (trains and buses), together with fuel prices and prepaid installments will add about 11.5 percentage points to inflation for the March-May quarter.
Between 18% and 30% of the inflation figure for the first five months of the year would be explained by the incidence of these regulated prices, projected the entity led by Marina Dal Poggetto and Sebastián Menescaldi.
Last week, the City of Buenos Aires had released its Consumer Price Index in which it registered an increase of 14.1%. With this increase, the CABA CPI accumulated an increase of 38.9% in the first two months of the year and a year-on-year variation of 264.5% (26 percentage points above the previous month), according to the Buenos Aires Esy Census Directorate. This jump in the interannual variation is explained because in February 2023, Buenos Aires inflation had been 6%.
The same day that the new inflation rate was known, andThe Government announced this Tuesday the opening of imports for basic basket products, after the meeting held in the last few hours by the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, with supermarkets.
“The decision was made to definitively open imports of certain products in the family basket in order to make prices more competitive with some tax cuts,” said presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni. The spokesperson maintained that “price increases above inflation expectations have been recognized.”
Source: Ambito
