2024-01-10 07:54:48
Ioan Bostan, from Baimăra, returned angrily from the market; he had spent almost 200 lei on some bitter greens, a loaf of bread, eggs and meat. With the same money, last year at this time he came with two full nets from the market
INS calculated family inflationPhoto: Robin Utrecht / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia
The INS published on Wednesday the figures on “family inflation”: how much a family’s income and expenses have increased and where most of our money goes. Data refer to autumn 2023, when average inflation was 18.8%
In short:
- In order to cope with the rising costs of living, Romanians cut 55% of Education expenses, 16% of insurance costs and buy less (or cheaper) food, with food expenses falling by 1%, according to Statistics data.
- Monthly expenses increased by 10.6%/family, while expenses rose more slowly, by 9.5%.
- The average monthly income in the fall of 2023 was 7,301 lei per household, increasing by 9.5% compared to the fall of 2022.
- The total average monthly expenses were, in the third quarter of 2023, 6432 lei per household, 10.6% higher
In the third quarter of 2023, the main destinations of families’ expenses were: consume (4025 lei per month) and transfers to the public and private administration and to the social insurance budgets in the form taxes, contributions, dues (2054 lei per household)
If we look at families composed of wage earners, farmers, unemployed or pensioners, their expenses have increased at different speeds.
Food expenses were over 20% higher for the unemployed.
They felt the inflation the strongest, spending on non-food products rising by 50% and those on services by almost 40%. As an impact, farmers felt the second most intense inflationary shock, followed by wage earners. In the case of the latter, services drew almost 20% more from the card and non-food products almost 24% more.
Also, the INS has calculated how much our consumption expenses have increased and what our money is spent on.
In lei, consumer spending looks like this:
The statistician asked people how much money would be enough for them to get by. He got answers that might surprise you
In Romania, one in 5 families has arrears in paying bills – it’s regarding maintenance/rents, utilities, bank installments, etc. Most of the arrears were on energy and maintenance bills (regarding three-quarters of those in arrears). The INS asked Romanians what salary they should have to cover expenses.
As for the ability to pay some bills on time (house maintenance, loan installments, utility payments, etc.) it is found that 18.5% of households mentioned that there was at least one situation in which they might not pay some bills on time expenses, a situation mainly caused by the unsatisfactory financial situation.
Among the payments for which arrears were registered during the year 2022, the most frequent cases were those with electricity (75.0%) and those with housing maintenance (68.1%). Rent arrears registered 14.6% of homes, Statistics shows in a research.
The first counterintuitive result: women would settle for less money
In Romania, there are regarding 7.5 million families, according to Statistics. About 5.2 million are headed by men and 2.3 million are headed by a woman, INS data also show.
About 3,000 male-headed families say that the minimum net income must be at least 4,000 lei to cover all expenses. In the case of women, just over 800 families would claim such a level. In July, the average net salary was over 4,500 lei.
In the US for example, in a similar survey, Americans said that to feel financially comfortable, they would need a salary of regarding $233,000 a year on average, which is more than three times the average income of American households (regarding 71,000 dollars per year).
One-person families would settle for less
Obviously, the larger the family, the greater the needs. When you have 4-5-6 children, it is clear that the resources you need are greater. Otherwise, in all other categories the needs are the same: over 4,000 lei.
In our country, only 15% of families say they might meet current expenses with a net monthly income of less than 2,001 lei, according to the INS research. Slightly higher (18%) is the percentage of those who would need an income of 3,000 lei, a percentage equal to that of families who might manage with 3-4,000 lei monthly.
Half of the families surveyed by Statistica say that the net monthly income needed to cover current monthly expenses should be more than 4,000 lei.
In general, note the statisticians who conducted the survey, there is a tendency to increase the share of households that believe they need an increasing net monthly monetary income to cope with expenses.
Appreciation differs greatly between families living in the country and those living in the city.
Thus, if in rural areas more than 20% of families believe that they can cope with current household expenses with a monthly net income of less than 2,001 lei, in urban areas, only 9.7% of families considered that a net income is necessary monthly less than 2,001 lei to cover current expenses.
In the case of urban families, almost 60% say that they would need more than 4,000 lei per month for the household’s current monthly expenses, compared to 39% of families living in rural areas.
Low incomes, below 2,001 lei, are considered necessary to cover the current expenses of the family, mainly those formed by a single person aged 65 or more (35.5%).
High incomes, over 4,000 lei net monthly, are considered necessary by over half of the 2-person families. The share of households with 3 or more people, which consider incomes of over 4,000 lei net monthly, necessary to cover the household’s current expenses, is around 70%.
Also, high incomes, over 4,000 lei net monthly, are considered necessary by over 75% of households with two adults and 3 or more dependent children, as well as by 68.1% of households consisting of two parents and 2 children addicts.
By region, the most families that would not settle for less than 4,000 lei net are those from Moldova, which is also one of the poorest and most underdeveloped regions in the country.
Families from Bucharest, Ardeal and Muntenia are almost equal (560 families each), and in Oltenia only 265 families would like high salaries.
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