After inflation and poverty line data for January will be released this Wednesday, with a delay of 2 months The Minimum, Living and Mobile Wage Council meets on Thursday 15th.
The meeting will have to establish the value of the minimum wage – which has accumulated a loss of over 45% in the last 8 years – and unemployment benefits.
The SMVM Commission brings together members of the CGT and CTA trade unions and business representatives such as the UIA. This is a kind of national parity that usually sets the percentages of wage increases that unions and employers would be willing to accept for all activities.
On this occasion, the minimum wage accumulates an additional loss because it should have been convened in December, to agree on the new value starting from January. When it meets in mid-February, it is assumed that the January value will be “skipped” and it is in doubt whether a new amount will be set retroactively to February 1 or govern from March 1.
In 2023 the minimum wage increased by 151.8% compared to inflation of 211.4%.. A loss of 19%, to which we must add the worsening in January according to the inflation data reported on Wednesday by Indec.
The SMVM for December was $156,000 in monthly payments or $780 per hour. In December 2022 it was $61,953 monthly or $309.77 per hour.
It is more than evident that those who receive the SMVM, plus the possible collection of the family salary per child, find themselves unable to cover all the requirements established by the Employment Contracts Law when the poverty basket for a typical family is around around 590,000/600,000 dollars. , without calculating the rent, according to what Indec will report tomorrow.
According to CIFRA (Research and Training Center of the Argentine Republic), “the purchasing power of the minimum, living and mobile wage has shown a negative trend since 2011, particularly strong in the last two years of Mauricio Macri’s government and in 2020.” This decline was even greater than the actual loss in recorded wages.”
Then, “between 2021 and 2022, in a context of rising inflation, seven updates to the minimum wage occurred, which did not achieve a recovery of its purchasing power. The year 2022 ended with an average decline in the real minimum wage of 1.3%, which placed it 33% below the 2015 level.” With the loss in 2023 the drop is 45%.
The law on employment contracts attributes three characteristics to the minimum, living and mobile wage. It is the lowest salary that the worker without family responsibilities must receive in cash for his working day. It must ensure adequate food, decent housing, education, clothing, healthcare, transportation, recreation, holidays and pension coverage. And it must be adjusted periodically based on changes in the cost of living.
Héctor Daer, head of the CGT and one of the union representatives before the SMVM Council, has announced that he will ask for an 85% increase.
Source: Clarin
