With the data known so far, the new bond will have 44% more beneficiaries than the 2020 IFE, but a lower purchasing power: this time it only covers 26% of the basic food basket, against 58% reached by the previous benefit.

Emergency Family Income (IFE) was implemented in 2020, at the start of the pandemic and quarantine. This was planned only once, but as the confinement was extended, new editions were added, up to three IFEs were paid.

The IFE is a payment of $ 10,000 a month. In April 2020 covers 58% of the main food basket, where INDEC measures the line of indigence for a family with four members. That basket reached $ 34,334 in February of this year.

The poverty and indigence basket for March will be released this Thursday. Inflation of 6.7% last month, with food rising 7.1% on the month, they expect that the jump from the basket will be strong.

The new bond, which has yet to be named, will reach 13 million people. For informal workers, domestic workers and monotributors A and B, it will be a benefit of $ 18,000 to be collected in two installmentsthe first in May and the second in June.

Today the The $ 9,000 of the first installment of the new bonus covers 26% of the main food basket.

Clearly, the current scenario is very different in 2020. At that time, strict incarceration and the impossibility of doing odd jobs left a large portion of the population without income, so the reliance on IFE was very high.

Two years later, employment is recovering, albeit at a slower rate among informal workers, but real incomes have been reduced by inflation of 55% in the last twelve months.

Hi IFE

The government started the IFE with an implementation error: the initial forecast was it would reach 3.5 million people. But the collapse of society was greater than predicted and turned into 9 million.

At that time it was established that only one member of the family group followed any of these requirements: informal workers, social monotributistas, monotributists of categories A and B, domestic personnel and beneficiaries of Universal Child Allowance (AUH) or Universal Pregnancy Allowance (AUE) or Progresar.

Beneficiaries of AUH-AUE and/or the Progresar program automatically receive the Income in the bank account they use to withdraw the allocation.

The other beneficiaries they need to do the digital procedure before ANSES and also open a free bank account. This last procedure was delayed amid the pandemic and at least a million people ended up personally collecting benefits at the Post Office.

Today almost the entire adult population has some type of bank account. As the government announced yesterday, this new bonus will go to staff of private households, monotributists of the two lowest categories (A and B with an average monthly income of $ 39,000 and $ 58,000, respectively) and non – registered workers. It did not mention AUH or other social plans.

According to Fernando Marull, from consulting firm FMyA, there are 7.8 million informal workers, with 704,000 monotributists and 91,000 domestic employees. This way you can reach over 8 million people.

In this we should add retirees -which in the previous edition was not part of IFE- will receive reinforcement of $ 12,000. This is for those who will receive up to two minimum pensions: they are between 5.7 and 6 million people.

An estimate by Nadin Argañaraz suggests that depending on the requirements decided to be imposed on the universe of potential beneficiaries, the additional cost indicated by these new transfers is between $ 176,000 million and $ 235,000 million.

To fund IFE, the government used the financial issue, in a context where all countries poured additional resources to help their populations. Due to incarceration and a large proportion of activities paralyzed for many months, inflation slowed that year and ended at 36.1%.

This time, although the government intends to step up the windfall income tax, the truth is additional revenues will not come in the coming months. Therefore, it uses the additional collection generated by inflation. With rising prices, the inflation tax is leaving them with a year-on-year jump in collection of 58.9% nominal so far this year.

For analysts, the irony is that the government’s solution to mitigate the effects of inflation is fueled by resources that generate inflation itself. And it opens the door so that this reversal of the “platita plan” is formed increased price pressure in an economy where weekly shortages in supplies and products are increasingly visible.

AQ