«I was forced to barter to repair the car»- Corriere.it

When the car left him on foot, Sergio Caruzo, 38, had to give the mechanic a bicycle that he no longer used because his bank account there was not enough money to pay for the repair. We do what we can, he says on the phone from the city of San Martin. And what Argentines can really do now is saving as much as possible. Because in Buenos Aires the prices continue to rise. The country’s annual inflation has reached 114 percent. the fourth highest rate in the world, after Zimbabwe, Lebanon and Venezuela. Only in the month of May increased by 7.8% compared to April. Here we have gone back, we barter a lot: we exchange objects for services. I worry about my son’s future, continue.

Expense cuts

Sergio (postman) and his wife (sales clerk) sip the expenses but, he admits, since 2019 our daily life has been turned upside down. For a family like theirs that earns 155 million pesos a month (563 euros) – salaries are not raised in the same way – the list of cuts to be made in order to survive is long. The first on idleness: We haven’t been to the theater since January, before we saw shows twice a week. But a ticket costs 45 thousand pesos. Impossible for us. The second on spending: We only buy sub-brand and low quality products: chicken, legumes, very little red meat. The third on the education of the child: We took him out of private school and into public school, the tuition cost 3500 pesos then increased to 16 thousand. We couldn’t afford it anymore. The fourth on transport: A liter of petrol costs 200 pesos, too much. Now we only get around by public transport and we use the car for emergencies.

Fights on the street

Sergio pauses for a few seconds. Then he resumes speaking: Life becomes difficult here, quarrels begin to arise on the street, people are whipped, anxious. You only work to pay for your house, food and bills. With inflation, the rent on the apartment where he lives also increased by almost three times. In 2019 Sergio paid 30 thousand pesos, in 2023 80 thousand: more than 90% of his salary. He says: terrible how inflation eats up the purchasing power of the people. Even Alberto Enecoiz, 65, divorced and with an adult daughter, admits that he is feeling the effects of the increases. He lives in his own house and his pension reaches 6,000 pesos, an above-average amount. For 27 years Alberto worked as commercial manager of Citibank. For now I’m calm but the increases weigh: I’ve just had a piece of potato tortilla: the price is 1200 pesos, he says. According to the latest data released by the Argentine National Institute of Statistics and Census, in May 2023 the basic food basket for a couple with two children amounted to 99,053 pesos, 5.2% more than in April, 122.6% more than in the same period of 2022.

Full restaurants

Yet, as a report by the New York Times, restaurants in Argentina are full. The financial crisis fills the tables because many middle and upper class people prefer it spendpesosbefore they lose value. As the Argentine currency collapses, many are thinking about how to get rid of the money. But 18 million people out of 46 million are poor. In the country, 8.1% of the population does not have sufficient income to feed themselves.

Wages on the rise

The director of the Argentine Center for Political Economy (Cepa) Hernn Letcher explains how the salaries of Argentines are also moving in a similar way to inflation. He comments: There was a 9.8% wage increase in April. actually people earn more but always less than the product raised and here the prices go up all the time. In the graph that Letcher shows us, from December 2019 to February 2023, the blue curve of inflation overlaps with the orange curve of the average salary of workers who benefit from a pension discount, explains the economist. But if in the second month of the year inflation reaches the threshold of 108, the effective salary remains at 99.9. Adds Letcher: While the average manages to maintain its end-2019 wage levels, which is a success given the current level of inflation, none of the 20 points lost during the 2016-2019 phase has been recovered.

Save less

To cut costs, Alberto changed the Wi-Fi offer: from 7,000 pesos he now pays 3,000. He says: As prices rise, I manage to set aside 40% less than before. What if inflation were to rise again? He will have to rent a house and move into a smaller apartment. Sergio on the other hand, in order not to deprive his son of sport, has decided to score him in the neighborhood soccer team which does not provide for any registration fee. At the end of the interview he reiterates once again how difficult it is for his family to make ends meet every month: a disaster. The crisis has killed our savings and if there are no savings there is no future.