Allocations did not cover all basic needs in 2022

Wages, formal and informal, were not the only income that lost against inflation in 2022. The allowances were not enough to cover basic needs, averaged by the basic food basket (CBA) and the total basic basket (CBT), which they were also located above the general CPI during the past year.

The demands are heating up due to the rise in food inflation and this week the tough piqueteros will return to the streets.

According to a report by the consultancy Ecolatina, the Universal Child Allowance (AUH) will not cover the CBA equivalent to a child during 2022. Here it should be noted that in the only month in which the evolution of the AUH was above the cost of the CBA was December, where a bonus for beneficiaries of the proposal was announced.

The cost of the articles of the essential food baskets rose last year above inflation by 100.3% the CBT, which marks the poverty line, and by 103.8% the CBA, which locates the threshold of indigence, as updated by INDEC. “Although this behavior was the norm during the last five years, 2018-2022, the gap widened as a result of the inflationary acceleration. For the 2016-2017 period, the AUH managed to cover the entire basket, while from 2018-2019 it only covered more than 80%,” said the Ecolatina document.

And he added: “this figure reached an average of 70% between 2020-2021 and throughout 2022 the deterioration ended up consolidating: it began the first quarter covering over 70% of the food basket, but month by month it decreased until it reached to a floor of 58% in November 2022”. In addition, two Minimum Vital and Mobile Wages and two AUH did not manage to cover the total family basket during the previous year either.