Families
in
the Buenos Aires metropolitan area already
spend an average of 11% of their income on public service rates
such as transportation (trains, buses, subway), energy (electricity and gas) and water.
The proportion doubled in just 2 months
(from December to February), when the increases in electricity, buses and trains were implemented, and remained stable in March, due to the freezing of natural gas rates through the network, water and sewers, according to a report by the
Interdisciplinary Institute of Political Economy (IIEP) of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and Conicet.
Economists
Alejandro Einstoss and Julián Rojo
found that a household in the City or Greater Buenos Aires (AMBA) spends an average of
$75,429
this month to pay for public services, when in December it barely spent $29,487.
At the beginning of Javier Milei's presidency, Alberto Fernández's tariff inheritance caused the impact of energy, transportation and water to be only 6% of average income.
The ratio reached a peak of 12% in February, after the accumulated increases of 410% in transportation in just 25 days (from January 15 to mid-February) and of 99% in electrical energy, which reflects the greater consumption in summer.
The "denominator"
salary
also did the other part of the work, with increases that remained well
below inflation
.
On a graph.
pic.twitter.com/R1Hr1tzdT0
— Empiria Consultores (@EmpiriaWeb) March 15, 2024
According to the consulting firm
Empiria
, directed by former Minister of Economy Hernán Lacunza, based on public data,
the average formal salary was in January 2024 for the first time in decades below the Total Basic Basket (CBT), which sets the poverty line
.
The average remuneration (RIPTE) collapsed from more than $900,000 - at this year's constant prices - in 2017 to $555,269, while the poverty basket remained relatively stable at this time and totaled $596,823 in the first month of this anus.
If the focus is limited only to the weight of energy services on the salary, the IIEP shows that in March electricity and gas had an impact of 5% on the average remuneration of a Level 1 (N1) household of the segmentation, high income or wealth, or those who did not ask for or renounced subsidies;
while it is 1.5% and 1.4% for N2 and N3, respectively.
The peak in recent years was 5.6% in June 2019, at the end of Mauricio Macri's presidency, when rate freezes returned during the campaign, which lasted during the Frente de Todos government.
A definition accepted by specialists on "
energy poverty
" establishes that households' electricity and gas expenses should not exceed the ceiling of 10% of their income.
This formula is used by Government technicians to design the basic energy basket
these days
, by which a limit of reasonable consumption will be set according to the number of members of the household and the bioclimatic region where they are located, in addition to other patrimonial criteria and history of travel and shopping.
The national State will only consider that those who spend more than 10% of their income on energy and who meet the remaining criteria deserve and need subsidies, such as not having a car or motorcycle less than 5 years old, not having purchased dollars or other foreign currency in the last 3 months, not having traveled abroad to non-neighboring countries in the last 5 years and having consumption measured on credit cards and virtual wallets, among others.
Until March 20, national public spending on subsidies fell 70% year-on-year in real terms to $712,591 million and there was a growth in floating debt of $141,458 million, which arises as the difference between the accrual and payment of subsidies. .
Going forward,
the Government plans to step on public transport rate increases in AMBA during April
and has already been delaying the gas increase since February to anchor inflation.
Gas transportation and distribution companies were notified that next month they will see increases and then monthly updates based on inflation and the evolution of salaries.
Likewise,
a new round of adjustments in electricity is planned in May
to remove most subsidies for low- and middle-income households, as well as updating wholesale electricity prices for high-income households, businesses, industries, buildings, hospitals, schools, clubs and public lighting.