Accumulated inflation is higher for families with lower wages

Families with lower income are hit by inflation higher accumulated, above 10% in 12 months, indicates a new study by Fipe (Foundation Institute of Economic Research) released this Tuesday (9).

The picture worries because the population layer with lower salaries has less financial conditions to deal with the lack of basic items for their well-being, such as food, bottled gas and electricity.

The Fipe study uses data from the IPC (Consumer Price Index), calculated by the foundation in the city of São Paulo.

The novelty is the division of results according to three income groups. The objective is to show that rising prices affect the population in different ways.

In the 12-month period, up to October, the group with the lowest family income, from one to three minimum wages, registered inflation of 10.63%. It is the highest percentage of the survey carried out in the city of São Paulo.

In the middle tier, with family income from three to eight minimum wages, the increase was 10.38% in the same period.

The lowest inflation in 12 months was verified among families with higher income (above eight minimum wages): 9.67%.

According to Fipe, the advance of prices in the population group with less resources was driven by food and housing.

This is because the two groups weigh more on the expenses of this layer and gather items that triggered throughout the pandemic.

Food became more expensive with the heated demand for agricultural commodities in the international market and the high dollar.

The housing group, on the other hand, covers items such as electricity and bottled gas, which rose with the water crisis and the increase in fuels, respectively.

“The loss of purchasing power and well-being is immense”, defines Fipe researcher Guilherme Moreira, coordinator of the IPC.

“With inflation, high-income people stop changing cars, traveling, but they don’t stop eating. For the lower income people, there is a loss of quality of life.”

In the accumulated result for this year, until October, the range of one to three minimum wages also feels a firmer rise in prices: 8.5%.

In the same period, the middle tier (three to eight minimum wages) had inflation of 8.43%. In high income (above eight minimum wages), the advance was 7.84%.

“Everyone feels considerable impacts. But inflation is much more perverse for low-income groups, who have few mechanisms to compensate for the rise in prices. The richest families manage to protect themselves better”, analyzes Moreira.

In October, high incomes even had inflation slightly higher than other groups. The rise in prices for this layer was 1.06%, with the impact of items such as travel and gasoline.

Inflation among the lowest incomes was 1.02% in October. In the intermediate range, the advance was 1%.

During the pandemic, escalating inflation and difficulties in the job market spread throughout the country scenes of people looking for donations and even leftovers.

In Fortaleza (CE), for example, a recent video shows a group looking for food in a garbage truck.

Other cases that became known were registered in Rio de Janeiro, where a truck was distributing leftover meat, and in Cuiabá (MT), which had queues looking for donations of ox bones.