Ismael Bermudez
08/04/2021 17:11
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 08/04/2021 17:11
Due to the deterioration of the population's income in the face of inflation, in the first quarter of this year, although economic activity advanced by 2.5%,
both indigence and poverty increased.
The
indigent or extremely poor increased from 8.6% to 11.2%
and poverty reached 39.5% versus 34.6% in the
same period of 2020
, before the outbreak of the epidemic.
Nationwide there
are
18.1 million poor people compared to 15.6 million in the first quarter of 2020
.
Of those totals, the homeless number 5.1 million versus 3.9 million a year ago.
Thus,
2.5 million more people than a year ago
went to live in households with insufficient income to buy a basic food basket.
The data comes from the
microdata
of the Permanent Household Survey (EPH) that INDEC released this Wednesday.
And that mark a strong general deterioration in income, but particularly among the 40% of the population that lives with very low resources.
Resistencia, with 53.9%, leads the poverty ranking
compared to 45.9% a year ago.
In the
Buenos Aires suburbs, it rose from 39.8% to 44.4%.
In the City of Buenos Aires, where the Buenos Aires Statistics Department released the data for the first quarter, poverty increased from 22.9 to 26.5% in one year.
Several factors weigh on this year-on-year rise in poverty:
* The income per inhabitant of the 40% with the lowest income registered a nominal increase of 27.4% when the average interannual inflation for the quarter was 40.6%.
And the poverty basket increased 42.2%.
• In the first quarter of 2020,
bonuses
were granted
to retirees and pensioners with minimum wages and to the beneficiaries of the AUH - those who helped reduce the indicators of last year's measurement - that were
not repeated
in the same period of 2021.
• A year ago, by decree, there were
fixed-sum salary increases
that benefited the lowest salaries the most that were not repeated at the beginning of this year.
• As of March of this year, the wages of unregistered workers - who earn less than half that of registered workers - had a year-on-year increase of 37.3% versus an inflation of 42.6% and 45% of the value of the poverty basket.
•
Retirements and pensions
registered an interannual increase of 29.4% as of March.
Low-earning bonuses were awarded in April and May.
39.5% in the first quarter is
lower than the 45.2% in the fourth quarter of 2020
.
But due to the incidence of the
average bonus,
which is recorded in the months of January and July, this comparison is not homogeneous.
The correct thing to do is to compare the first and third trimesters
, on the one hand, and the second and fourth, on the other.
And that partly explains, except if a crisis breaks out as it started last year with the pandemic and restrictions on activity, why the measurements of the first and third quarters show lower percentages than those of the second and fourth quarters.
In this case, 39.5% is also higher than the poverty figure for both the first and third quarters of last year and lower than the second and fourth quarters of 2020.
In 2020, the quarterly sequence of poverty was as follows: 34.6% in the first quarter, 47.2% in the second quarter, 38.8% in the third quarter, and 45.2% in the fourth quarter.
And the semester measurement was 40.9% and 42%.
The peaks in the second, third and fourth quarters of 2020 were due to restrictions imposed on circulation and economic activity.
INDEC will release poverty data for the first half of 2021 on September 30.
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