High prices confuse even app that records inflation in Brazil

“The price entered is outside the allowed range. Do you want to continue?” The alert from the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s price collection system has appeared frequently on the cell phones of housewives that help measure inflation in the country. The inflationary surge experienced since the beginning of 2021 is seen as a distortion even by the foundation’s machines. For the people responsible for the collection, the evaluation is not very different.

“It’s quite scary to compare it with another time, and I’m not talking about so long ago, and see how much we’ve lost purchasing power,” says Sylvia de Assis Cardoso, an employee at FGV Ibre (Brazilian Institute of Economics at Fundação Getulio Vargas). ).

Its information supplies indicators such as the IGPs (general price indices) and the IPC-S (consumer price index), released every ten days. They also go to the inflation monitor, a daily collection used by the financial market to try to project the IPCA, the official index measured by the IBGE.

Sylvia was once one of the self-employed housewives who check prices in the city of Rio de Janeiro, from 2016 to 2019. Now, she collects online and by phone at the Foundation’s office, in addition to supporting colleagues on the street.

Housewives are responsible for prices in supermarkets, small shops, pharmacies, gas stations, among other commercial establishments. Employees who do remote work research items such as airline tickets, intercity buses and gas cylinders. Data from invoices complement the work at FGV.

The discrepancy in prices also makes the task of those responsible for the Fipe (Economic Research Institute Foundation) difficult task, says Moacir Mokem Yabiku. He has worked with the IPC for over 40 years, going back to the days when the survey was done with paper and pen.

In the case of Fipe employees who go to the field, many with experience prior to the Real Plan, very large variations demand the observation “with confirmed price”. It is a way of highlighting that some results are not typing errors, but reflect the reality of the 70 thousand prices collected in the capital of São Paulo, according to the technician.

Marcelo Pereira, a technical analyst who has worked on the IPC team for 30 years, also highlights the greatest difficulty at this moment. “With the inflation that we are experiencing, the tendency is for the interviewer to double work to confirm that price. It demands more work, more care. And we have to be more detailed with the data that arrive from the field”, he says.

Etelvina Ferreira Gonçalves, 73, has been working for 12 years as one of the housewives who collects for FGV. She is responsible for gathering information from 32 establishments.

Among them, a hypermarket in the north of São Paulo that visits every ten days, always at 7:30 am, to register the price of almost 300 products that are on the list available on the smartphone.

Given the practice and knowledge about the location of the products, the collection takes about three hours. With the large price variation seen in the current inflationary wave, the system often rejects the value entered, and it is necessary to send a photo of the ad, something that has occurred frequently in recent times.

There is no fixed percentage for the alert. The signaling is done according to the historical series of the price of each input collected.

During the journey, Etelvina verifies changes in consumer behavior. Few take children there. Carts are emptier. Complaints, even on promotion days, are constant.

She also claims that large purchases have been replaced by more frequent trips to the market to take advantage of the day’s promotions. “The person came once a month and made that big purchase, it didn’t matter the price. Today, if you want to save money, you have to come on the day of the fair, on the day of the meat…”

The large number of photos requested by the system in the collection of the last week —​and the fact that the work was accompanied by the report of the Sheet— seem not to have delayed the delivery of the information very much.

Once the survey is completed, she remains at the hypermarket for some time to wait for the data to be validated and ask questions. [ou mais fotos]before being released by the office staff.

Before the market, he did the survey at the gas stations that are on his list. Faced with fuel prices, he decides to enjoy the trip. “When she [supervisora] release me, I will make my purchase. Because I’ve already passed, seen everything and I’m driving. That way I don’t spend another gas.”