From the jump in the value of the basic food basket after the August devaluation following the PASOin the third quarter of last year there was a increase in the number of poor people, from 8% to 9.9%. If these percentages are extended to the entire population (46.6 million), including the rural population, they become 4,600,000 against 3,700,000 in the same period of 2022. There are 900,000 more poor people who did not have sufficient income to feed themselves.
While, 38.5% of the population began living below the poverty line compared to 37.7% in the same period in 2022, according to the processing of microdata from the EPH (Permanent Household Survey) released on Thursday 8th by INDEC. There are almost 18 million poor people.
For all this, it is concluded that, after the largest devaluation in December and the largest increase in food prices and basic expenses, destitution and poverty made another leap in the fourth quarter of 2023 and even more in this first quarter of 2024. .
said Martin Rozada, director of the Master in Econometrics at the University of Tella, who processed this microdata Clarion That “The poverty rate in the third quarter of 2023 remained relatively constant compared to the third quarter of 2022 because, on average, total household income increased by almost the same amount as the total basic basket by which poverty is measured. Part of the year-on-year increase in total household income is explained by the increase in the number of income earners from the lowest deciles of the distribution.”.
However, Rozada added, that “This increase in total family income has not offset the inflation of the basic food basket (CBA) by which poverty is measured.. CBA increased approximately 145% between the third quarter of 2023 and the third quarter of 2022, while, on average, the total income of the lowest four deciles increased by 127%. This difference between the increase in the income of the lowest deciles and the increase in the CBA explains the increase in the poverty rate”.
By age, child poverty among those under 14 stands at 54.8% versus 51.7% in the third quarter of 2022, while child poverty increased from 11.8 to 15.6%.
The increase in poverty occurred in all age groups, while poverty increased among children under 14 years of age. and those over 65 years old, in this case, due to the loss of purchasing power of their assets.
Indec does not release quarterly data on homelessness and poverty due to the alteration caused in the measurement by the collection of the half bonus in the months of June and December. For this reason the organization publishes data on deprivation and poverty every six months, taking into account the months January-June and July-December.
However, through the dissemination of microdata it is possible to calculate a set of social indicators with the care of comparing homogeneous neighborhoods.
With this clarification, the specialists who manage this Index program can calculate these key indicators.
Source: Clarin
