The fact that the basket that measures subsistence (food, travel expenses, clothing, education and health) fell by a third of a percentage in May does not fundamentally change the equation disseminated by the Di Tella University: there are 14.5 million inhabitants of the country’s cities. immersed in poverty.
They represent almost half of the urban population and a third if the rural population were included, but in numbers they would still be 2 million more than at the end of December, although the last two slowdowns (April and May) reduced it to 1.1 million.
The update carried out with the dissemination of the total basic basket for May that the INDEC follows was projected by the author of the UTDT report on the results of the November-April semester.
The report admits that the margin of error regarding the 48.7% of the estimated April-May urban poverty rate, which means 8.8% above the previous semester, which had been 40.1%), is between 48.2% and 51.2%.
In any case, behind the dances of macrostatistics, but in plain sight of all, poverty is reflected daily in the decline published by INDEC of -9.3% in March sales in supermarkets, of -10.7% in self-services, -45% in the purchase of medicines and a -23% decrease in the acquisition of clothing.
The Banco Provincia report directly shows the behavior of consumption in the Buenos Aires suburbs, which was where the impact of the contraction was felt most.
Thus, in the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires (RMBA) the drop was 38.3%, where the southern part was the most affected, with -43.4% decrease, followed by the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires -42, 3% and the west zone, -40%.
The formula that measures in terms of the percentage of people living in poor urban households used by Martín Gonzalez-Rozada, professor of the Department and director of the Master’s Degree in Econometrics and researcher at the Di Tella University, was applied to the December 2023-May semester. 2024 and gave 49.7%.
According to the Permanent Household Survey (EPH), representative of the population residing in cities, there would consequently be around 14.5 million poor urban households. If the rural population were included, the volume of poverty in terms of coverage of the total basic basket would jump to 23 million.
The average in Greater Buenos Aires (GBA) increased in the December-May semester by 283.2% against 207% of total family income.
The difference between costs and income would have to be found in the quantity adjustments arranged in each home: eating less in quantity or lowering quality, traveling less, not replacing clothing and footwear, buying fewer school supplies and medicines, or going directly from private school to public and/or from the sanatorium to the hospital.
The basic basket increased 2.8% in May, after 7.1% in April, which in general terms could be read as a relief, but if these decreasing percentages are contrasted with the employment problems that multiplied in the same period and with the real purchasing power of income, pockets will not register almost a third of the reduction.
EMPLOYMENT
The average CBT of the Greater Buenos Aires (GBA) region for the reference semester was estimated at $228,502 per equivalent adult. This is a year-on-year increase of 283.2%. For the average total family income (ITF), an interannual increase of 207% was projected for the semester.
With these data and the simulation of the EPH microdata for the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first and second quarters of 2024, the poverty rate was projected.
The projected incidence can be mechanically decomposed into a weighted average of a poverty rate of 45.2% for December 2023, 51.8% for the first quarter of 2024 and 48.7% for the two-month period April-May 2024. This projection suggests that around 50% of people live in poor urban households.
The EPH is a representative survey of an urban population that in the reference semester was estimated at 29.3 million people, which implies that around 14.5 million live in poor urban households, it ends by saying.
