The strong local inflation forces consumers to have the calculator at hand every day, the dizzying changes in prices make it impossible to have a clear certainty of how much money is needed to meet the multiple expenses that a family has per month.
A private study focuses specifically on the evolution of the prices of the basic basket of services
and the increases for March.
How many pesos will a typical family
(two adults and two children) need to pay for services such as electricity, water, gas, transportation, private school, cell phone, fuel and prepaid, and even rent and expenses.
How much was needed in September 2022, since the Government began to restrict subsidies, and how much will be needed in March.
According to the Focus Market consultancy, a “typical” family began paying
$178,928 in September 2022
and will end up paying $320,683 in
March 2023
, this implies an increase of
79.2% in its basket of services
in just one semester.
To arrive at these numbers, the consultant took the case of a typical family of 4 members (two adults and 2 school-age children) and from there they warn that while in September 2022 the typical family needed $4,500 pesos to pay the bill for electricity, at the end of the tariff adjustment they will end up paying around $7,776.
"This is due to the removal of subsidies in 3 tranches of 20%, contemplating that in April 2023 they come close to paying more than 70% of the full rate," they indicate.
In the case of water (tariff segmentation that, in addition to taking income level and financial situation, from the consultant they took a criterion of geographical zones that determines that in March they should only have 15% of the subsidy) this family will go
from paying $800 to $3900.
With regard to gas (the removal of the state contribution occurs in three tranches according to users: Level 1, with high incomes, an average increase of 84% was applied to all strata, so that finally in March 2023 it will continue with an increase of 14%), assuming that this family lives in a residential area, estimates suggest that they will go from paying $3,500 to $7,342.
"The increases in services will weigh heavily on Argentine families. Although
the salaries recorded in the last 2 months beat inflation on average,
that will depend on the sector or line in which that person works," says Damián Di Pace, head of Focus Market.
The specialist explains that this scenario worsens if it is a monotributista.
If, on top of that, the heads of these families are informal, "they will be in the worst of all worlds" because they will have lost an average of 20 points compared to year-on-year inflation.
Of that basket of basic expenses that a family has, one of the most important services is rent.
To do this, the consultant took as a starting point a contract that began in March 2020 (which is corrected by the Rental Contract Index for 2022 and finally by the REM data).
Taking all the corrections, the Di Pace consultant indicates that a typical family will go from paying $60,000 to $114,000 by March 2023.
To this data we must also add
the cost of expenses
.
They
had an interannual increase of 100%,
these families
would go from paying $12,500 to $20,202 in March 2023.
An expense that has also become essential is that of the internet, cable and mobile telephony.
Bearing in mind that the companies providing these services will be able to apply increases of 4% in January 2023, 4% in February, 3% in March, and up to 3.5% in April, the pencil will have to be fine-tuned: the values they would go from $3800 to $5133 approximately;
the cable or streaming service would increase from $3,700 to $4,998;
and the telephone (two cell phones per adult) would go from $3,200 to $4,903.
Regarding fuel, since December 2022 every month there is an increase of 4% and up to 3.8% in March 2023. In this way, if that same family has a car, for its use it will go
from paying $20,000 to $25,258.
If the use of family transport is also added to them, considering the weekly Taxi service (last increase in November 2022) added to the use of Public Transport with combinations (increases are expected in 4 sections as of March 2023) and the Insurance of Auto (had an average increase of 50%).
This family that in September 2022 paid $6,500 will pay about $10,140 in March 2023, regarding taxis;
from $2,128 to $2,979 if travel by public transportation is contemplated;
and from $11,300 to $17,556, in relation to car insurance.
In March, as happens every year, the private school fee will also increase.
Until December 2022 there were increases of up to 14.5%, to that amount another increase of approximately 10% in tuition was added and the increase in the monthly fee will be added for what, according to the calculation of the consultant, would go on to pay from $20,000 to $55,000 (this value includes the two minors in primary and secondary school).
"
It is important to consider that there are services that have not yet increased in relation to the level of inflation accumulated
in recent years or have lagged behind the increase percentages determined at the beginning of 2022 when inflation of 33% was projected, which ended up being almost 3 times higher at the end of the year.
This will leave service prices lagging behind past and future inflation
, which is why more increases are projected throughout 2023 after March 2023, which is what we estimate in this report," says Di Pace.
In this way, this witness family that began paying $178,928 in September 2022 (the date on which the path towards the normalization of the prices of public services began), and would end up paying in March 2023 the amount of $320,683, which implies an increase of 79.2% of its service basket in just one semester.
"This basket only includes services and not food. If the value of a basic food basket is added considering moderate food inflation of 4% for the coming months, it will be $82,300 in March 2023," they point out from the consultant.
And they conclude: "
In this way, a family to cover its basket of services and food will need $402,983
to sustain its cost and standard of living. If we take into account that the minimum vital and mobile wage as of March 2023 will be $69,500,
this family It will require 5.8 vital and mobile minimum wages to cover its basket of services plus food
."
NS
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