According to the analysis of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), households with the lowest incomes are the ones that feel the burden of inflation the heaviest, since they dedicate a greater proportion of their income to food.
And since food is the one that has registered the greatest pressures this year, as of October they completed a variation of 8.31% per year, they would be suffering it more significantly.
However, the President of the National Alliance of Small Merchants (ANPEC), Cuauhtémoc Rivera, details in an interview that inflation has already spread and that it is perceptible in all economic strata.
The difference is that some families feel the increase in prices, and others resent it and have already been forced to reduce their consumption, or adjust it in some way, he said.
His observation can be confirmed with disaggregated information from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) that allows us to see that households in Mexico that receive between one and three minimum wages have felt a more pronounced upward variation in inflation.
Inflation in October completed an annual fluctuation of 6.2%, but families that live with incomes that are between one and three minimum wages, perceived a 6.50% annual increase in inflation.
As the family spending stratum rises, the variation in prices is reduced moderately, so the one with the least impact is the one that earns more than six minimum wages, which in September observed a variation of 6.13% in its particular inflation.
In September the difference was 6% in low-income households versus 5.83% in those with more than six minimum wages.
Thermal sensation
The Director of Economic Research at the SAVER Veracruz ThinkLab, Luis Pérez Lezama, details that inflation expectations are unmoored, and proof of this is the perceptible price escalation in daily purchases.
Energy prices are a determining factor for unlocking, as producers have already ended up transferring the cost of fluctuating electricity, gas and gasoline rates to their prices.
The president of the ANPEC, takes for example the weather forecasts to explain that they usually report the temperature at a certain level, but describe that the thermal sensation is lower or higher.
The same is happening with final pricing, he noted. The Inegi says that inflation is 6.23%, but it turns out that the consumer who buys a kilo of apples sees that he is not enough to buy the same amount that he had months ago, or last year.
Producers are raising prices, the intermediary also applies the increase and the final consumer receives it with an escalation that is rising much faster than their income, said Rivera.
They both agree that there is a generalized price contamination.
Insecurity, another bill
The president of ANPEC specifies that insecurity and the search for routes and schedules to prevent theft of entire trailers with merchandise is another factor behind the price escalation, which has been dragging on since 2018 and has increased.
It also refers to the payment that distributors have to make to organized crime to allow them to pass through certain territories, or the payment of the “right of floor” for their mills, packing houses and land.
Remember that there is limited competition in products for general consumption, where there are three large groups of producers who speculate in staple foods, such as eggs or sugar, which also makes the final price more expensive. A perfect cocktail to fuel the price increase.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx