Meanwhile, monthly inflation was 2%, higher than that of March, when it stood at 1.2%.
It should be remembered that, after Four years of hyperinflation, Venezuela registered an inflation of 189.8% in 2023, compared to what was registered in 2022, when it was 234%, and in 2021 with 305%.
This drop in prices occurred in the midst of a spending adjustment policy following the sanctions imposed by the United States, since the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, continues to keep the country’s minimum wage frozen from 2022, leaving it at 130 bolivars per month, that is, less than 4 dollars per month.
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This represents 88% less than the $30 it was equivalent to when the minimum in that country was last increased in March 2022, as a result of the devaluation of the local currency against the US currency.
Maduro blamed the “economic war” for the loss of purchasing power of wages, which reached $384 in 2008, under the government of then-president Hugo Chávez.
Meanwhile, last Wednesday, on International Labor Day, Maduro also announced an increase of 30%, up to 130 dollars per month, of the so-called “indexed comprehensive minimum income” (IMII), paid in bolivars at the official rate on the payment date and made up of two bonds that do not generate labor liabilities.
“I have decided to raise the minimum comprehensive income of workers to 130 dollars, the minimum, and to impact (…) the capacity of workers,” said the Venezuelan president.
He explained that this increase is part of a plan to “optimize” the income that the country obtains through oil and tax collection, with which he hopes to “recover” workers’ salaries “little by little.”
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