This Monday from the Office of the President, the Government was honored for having achieved in March “the most significant recovery of the real private salaries of Argentines since 2009.” However, As Ámbito had already explained, the data is misleading because it is based on an indicator that is not the most appropriate to explain what is happening with income.
Last week the Ministry of Labor published the April data corresponding to the Taxable Remuneration of Stable Workers of the Argentine Republic (RIPTE)which represented an increase in 16.1% compared to March, against an inflation that was 8.8% in the same period.
These are the numbers that the Government uses to ensure that salaries are recovering after the hard blow suffered with the December devaluation. Nevertheless, The rest of the indicators do not show the same and specialists assure that the RIPTE is not useful to evaluate social and labor dynamics.
Salaries: reasons why the RIPTE is not the most appropriate indicator
Firstly, the RIPTE does not arise, as the SIPA does, from specific salaries but from the considered base for social security contributions, which today have a limit that is updated every three months. When that limit is stepped on, like in the first two months, The RIPTE evolves into a smaller ritual than the rest of the salary indicators. On the contrary, when there are adjustments to that limit (as happened in April, with a 27% increase), the RIPTE accelerates more than the SIPA or INDEC figures.
“More than salaries, the RIPTE is influenced by retirement mobility and jumps in the personal contribution ceiling,” said the economist and director of the CP consulting firm.Federico Pastrana.
On the other hand, the RIPTE does not contemplate non-remunerative concepts of salaries, which in the face of the current inflationary dynamics, gained a lot of weight in the settlements made by employers.
Even from its own website Labor Secretary explain that the RIPTE was prepared as an input to determine retirement mobility but “it does not necessarily reflect the evolution of salaries in private registered employment” because it excludes:
- The remunerations of the newest jobs (since it is based on the income of workers who are under a dependency relationship and who have been declared continuously during the last 13 months).
- The non-remunerative components of the salary.
- The surplus between salaries and the maximum salary amount defined for personal contributions to the social security system.
What is really happening with salaries?
The consultant CP has a parity tracking indicator that shows a totally different dynamic from that of the RIPTE, with a nominal variation close to 6% for April and Maycoming from the average of private sector agreements.
“After a historic drop in December of 11 real points, salaries initially recovered 40% of that contraction due to an indexation issue related to past inflation. But later there was stagnation within the framework of an anti-inflationary policy that used wages as an anchor“Pastrana explained.
Regarding informal salaries, the specialist clarified that the most convincing data, which are those that arise from the Permanent Household Survey (EPH) of the INDEC, come with a delay of four months, which makes it difficult to carry out an updated follow-up in that segment.
However, he stressed that It is expected that the income of informal workers has fallen even more than the rest of the income. since they depend a lot on the quantities sold, which have plummeted noticeably in recent months, and because the workers in question are more exposed to general price increases. “Regardless of whether it has dropped a lot, inflation remains high and therefore we believe that informal workers are being hurt more,” she developed.
“That is why we believe that in these months income inequality worsened and poverty increased,” he concluded.
For his part, the master in Political Economy Hernán Letcher estimates that “it is reasonable that the salary fluctuates and that by virtue of the joint negotiations held between April and June, the impact on the private registered salary series indicates an improvement,” but he clarified that “the Government’s objective is to maintain a salary level significantly lower than 2023.”
Source: Ambito
