More than 2.5 million public and private workers with National Social Security contributions recorded as of the end of 2022 gross salaries of less than $100,000. With pension and health discounts, they have $83,000 in hand.
Of this total, 464,792 were employees in the public sector and 2,054,155 in the private sector, according to the Social Insurance Bulletin. This total represented the 33.8% of the total of the 7,246,921 employees with contributions declared by companies or state bodies to the Pension System.
If we add those earning gross wages up to $140,000, the total adds up to 3,946,719 workers, more than 54% of the total. Of this total, 654,023 employees in the public sector and 3,292,696 in the private sector.
These totals do not include those contributing to Provincial Funds not transferred to the national system, such as those of the Province of Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Santa Fe, among others.
According to the Social Security, these values correspond to “the month of November 2022, as it is the month immediately preceding the period of December 2022, with salaries not affected by the half bonus”.
In the case of head of household Those values were lower than the household poverty basket, even with the collection of family salary per child.
Is that last year ended with a basket of basic poverty of $49,357 for an older adult and $152,515 for a family consisting of a married couple and 2 minor children.
Due to the rising inflation of these first months of 2023, this working reality must be more serious as wages have risen below the values of the basket of deprivation and poverty.
Although many companies pay a salary with contributions and another part “without a pension discount” (to avoid paying social security contributions which weigh on the worker, for example in the event of imminent retirement or an accident at work), these figures and the Permanent Household Survey (EPH) shows the extent to which the impoverishment of the workforce has reached, including those in regular jobs.
Among the employed, there was a year-on-year increase of almost 6 percentage points in the number of regular wage earners (with pension discount) living in poor households, rising from 13.6% in 2021 to 19.3% in the fourth quarter of 2021. 2022, according to INDEC microdata.
According to LCG consultancy real wages are 24.9% lower than in November 2017 (last peak). “While registered workers recorded a drop in purchasing power of 20.8% compared to the latter period mentioned, lInformal workers are the most affected with the loss almost doubling, reaching 41%”.
This increase in poverty has occurred with more activities, more people employed (unemployment has decreased) and in all modes of work, although proportionally, it has increased more among members, with a discount on retirement. In this reality of impoverishment generalized of the workers several factors coincide .
THE rising inflation, loss of purchasing power started in 2018 and now uninterrupted for five years without being reversed, the reduction in labor costs, whether due to precariousness, informal work or agreements that close below inflation, among other reasons. Also the increase in food prices, which mainly affects the lower income groups.
In short, with growth, with fewer unemployed and more employed, a greater share of families or families ended 2022 poorer. A sort of “growing” impoverishment.
This impoverishment with growth and decrease in unemployment it has led to a loss of participation of all workers in the economic wealth generated, says CIFRA (Centro de Investigación y Formación de la República Argentina).
“A first drop in this sense occurred during the Cambiemos government, when overall wages went from 51.8% of the total Added Value in 2016 to 46.3% in 2019, due to a real drop in wages higher than the decrease in activity level between those years. At the end of 2020, with the post-pandemic economic recovery, there was once again a process of loss of participation in remuneration, which in 2022 stood at 44.9% of the added value”.
Source: Clarin
