The Ministry of Economy reduced the estimate for this year’s INPC (National Consumer Price Index) from 7.41% to 6.54%. With the retreat, the readjustment of the minimum wage may be lower in 2023.
The INPC is the index used to correct the national minimum wage, social security and assistance benefits and expenses such as salary bonuses and unemployment insurance.
The minimum wage today is R$ 1,212. Considering the new inflation projected to the government, the value of the minimum wage in 2023 would go to R$ 1,292, which represents R$ 10 less than the forecast of R$ 1,302 made in the PLOA (annual budget law project) sent to Congress National.
The figure was also below the R$ 1,294 estimated in April, when the government presented the LDO (Budget Guidelines Law).
The effective value of the minimum wage in 2023 will only be known at the end of the year, when President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) edits the MP (provisional measure) with the new national floor.
The head of the Special Advisory for Economic Studies, Rogério Boueri, avoided making estimates at the press conference held on Thursday (15) about the government’s new macroeconomic parameters.
“The minimum wage projection is not part of what we do in the grid, it is a decision that comes by decree. We do not disclose this number, this number is not public”, he said.
In recent weeks, projections for 2022 inflation have been revised downwards, driven by the reduction of taxes on fuel.
At the end of June, Congress set a ceiling of 17% to 18% for charging ICMS on fuel, electricity, transport and telecommunications prices, in addition to having approved a cut in federal taxes on gasoline and ethanol.
“The deflation of the last few months mainly reflects the reduction in the prices of monitored items, such as fuels, but we also observed a certain stabilization of inflation in services and food at home,” said Boueri.
The government predicts in 2023 a readjustment of the minimum wage without real increase for the fourth year in a row.
The national floor was raised above inflation for the last time in early 2019, in a decree signed by Bolsonaro, following the valuation policy approved by law during the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government.
However, since 2019, the government has chosen to just reset the INPC variation, a mandatory adjustment to ensure the maintenance of workers’ purchasing power.
“When we look at the constitutional principle of maintaining purchasing power in the minimum wage, when inflation is higher, the readjustment of the minimum wage tends to be higher as well”, said Boueri.
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