In the first quarter of the year there was a significant increase in social inequality, according to Indec statistics that measure the income of households and people based on the Permanent Household Survey (EPH). This latest report accompanies the official data released this week on the contraction of activity and growth of unemployment and paints a scenario of rapid formation of an economic crisis as a corollary of the Government’s policies, since no severe shock or contagion of international crisis is affecting to the local economy at this time. It is the worst result in 16 years, since the first quarter of 2008.
In the first quarter of 2024, income inequality measured through the Gini coefficient: the value was 0.467 while in the same period of 2023 it reached 0.446, with zero being the value that implies absolute equality and one being total inequality. In distributional terms, it is necessary to go back to 2008 to find similar inequality (0.463), with the Gini decreasing year after year from the exit of Convertibility until 2015.
In turn, the distribution gap calculated between the median family per capita income of the population in decile 10 and decile 1 (that is, the richest 10 percent versus the poorest 10 percent) was 15 times. The median gap increased one point, both in the year-on-year comparison, compared to the first quarter of 2023, and in relation to the last quarter with bonus (third quarter of 2023).
The income indicator captures a less critical situation, but the employment statistics released yesterday by Indec, also based on the EPH, showed that demanding underemployment is growing, which reveals that the majority of people seek to increase their workload because income becomes insufficient. Demanding underemployment grew by 0.7 percentage points in a context in which open unemployment increased in a similar proportion, and this also affects income because in contexts of employment crisis, salaries tend to stagnate.
He average per capita income of the total population, which corresponds to 29,593,119 people, reached 233,695 pesos in the first quarter of the year, while the median per capita income was 155,000 pesos. A comparatively low level if fixed costs of living such as utility rates, health and private education costs (if any), telecommunications, rent, etc. are taken into account.
In turn, Indec revealed that 62.2 percent of the total population received some income, whose average is equal to 369,085 pesos. Analyzed according to the individual income scale, the average income of the low strata (deciles 1 to 4) was 122,529 pesos, in the middle strata (deciles 5 to 8) 327,862 pesos and in the high strata (deciles 9 and 10) of 945,325 pesos. It should be noted that the latter are characterized by underdeclaring income. Likewise, male recipients had an average income of 429,741 pesos while women had an average income of 310,064 pesos.
In the case of the salaried employed population, the average income was 361,445 pesos. The average income of salaried people with a retirement discount was 449,382 pesos (indicating an increase of 196.1 percent year-on-year), while in the case of those without a retirement discount the average income reached 197,467 pesos (with a 200.8 percent year-on-year increase).
For the case of the homes, labor income represented 76.8 percent of total compensation, while non-labor income reached the remaining 23.2 percent. The weight of non-labor income is greater for the lowest deciles of total family income.
