Venezuelans need about 91.3 minimum wages to access the family food basket -calculated for five people-, whose value reached 482.26 dollars in February, according to estimates by the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers ( Cendas-FVM), released today.
The independent entity explained that when the minimum wage is established by the Executive at 130 bolivars per month -some 5.28 dollars on average-, a family needed 16 dollars a day to cover the food basket, calculated with the prices of 60 products.
The Cendas-FVM calculated the price of the basic food basket at 482.26 dollars, which represents a decrease of 0.9% compared to the month of January when it was 486.92.
However, when calculating in local currency, the basic basket had a cost of 11,873.34 bolivars, an increase of 14%, due to inflation, with compared to last January when it was registered at 10,418.98.
Inflation in February was 20.2%, 19.2 percentage points less than in January, when it was 39.4%, according to data released in early March by the Venezuelan Finance Observatory (OVF).
That entity explained that, with an increase in the price of the US dollar of 11% in February, a monthly inflation rate of 20.2%, suggests that prices are “overreacting to the devaluation of the bolivar.”
Venezuela emerged in December 2021 from hyperinflation that it entered in 2017 and that, for four years, reduced the value of the bolivar, the official currency, as well as the confidence of citizens in it, for which they unofficially adopted the dollar in an attempt to protect their income.
