The cost of items in the basic food basket rose last year above inflation by 100.3% in the Total Basic Basket (CBT) and 103.8% in the case of the Basic Food Basket (CBA).), reported the INDEC. The numbers are worrying, not only because it exceeded 94.8% of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), but also because it hits the most vulnerable sectors squarely.
Last December, the monthly increase of the CBA was 5.0%, according to the report. That of the CBT was 4.5%, almost in line with the rise in the cost of living in that month of 5.1%. In the previous year, the CBT, which defines the level of poverty, reached a cost of $152,515.29, and the CBA, which establishes the level of indigence, came to be worth $67,187.35 at the end of last December.
The variations of the CBA and the CBT were 103.8% and 100.3%, in interannual terms, according to the statistical agency. According to the cost of the CBT, in order not to be poor, a typical family of four members had to have a monthly income equivalent to two and a half times the value of a minimum wage. Last December it was $61,953, a level that is below the cost of the CBA.
Inflation hits retirees
The cost of the basic food basket more than doubles the value of the minimum retirement according to NA, which in December was $60,124. According to official figures from INDEC, a family of three members, owners of the house they occupy, the cost of the CBT reached $121,419 in December and for a family group of five members $160,412.
The CBA cost $53,488 for a family group of three members, while for one of five members it rose to $70,666. For an adult person, last December the cost of the CBT was $49,357 and that of food $21,743. In this way, retirees once once more suffer the blows of inflation despite the bonuses and state aid.