Nicolás Maduro raised the minimum wage by 300% but not enough to buy a kilo of meat

The Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro announced this Saturday, on the occasion of Labor Day, an increase in the minimum wage of almost 300%, which, however, is not enough for a kilo of meat, in the middle of the runaway hyperinflation.

“An increase in the minimum wage to 7 million bolivars comes into force”, equivalent to 2.5 dollars, informed the Minister of Labor, Eduardo Piñate, before a concentration of followers of Chavism in an act on the occasion of May 1st.

The salary, which increased by 288.8% from the current 1.8 million, is complemented by a Food link of “3 million bolivars, to reach” a minimum income of 10 million bolivars.

The amount is insufficient to recover the purchasing power of Venezuelans, who are suffering from the worst crisis in the modern history of their country.

The 10 million people cannot buy a kilo of meat, $ 3.75, in a dollarized economy, which is going through its fourth year of hyperinflation and its eighth of recession.

A carton of 30 eggs, for example, is worth 11 million bolivars, or the equivalent of a kilo of cheese, above the minimum income.

These prices may rise in supermarkets in affluent neighborhoods of Caracas, where prices are now expressed in dollars, the de facto currency, managed not only by formal merchants, but also street vendors.

The announcement was rejected by political leaders such as Henrique Capriles, a former presidential candidate who described the pay rise as “another mockery of our workers”. “And the hardest hit are precisely those who work in public administration. At least the private sector has stopped taking the benchmark as a benchmark. starving minimum wage. Another sector that is suffering are retirees! He exclaimed.

Likewise, the economist, Ángel García Banchs, warned that the increase will generate “more inflation in bolivars and probably also in dollars”.

“Raising wages at a rate greater than productivity causes inflation. We must eliminate drug traffickers, park wages and lower the exchange rate to end the artificial hyperinflation of these gangsters,” he said. -he declares.

Also, economist Jesús Casique, asserted that “the only way to increase the real wage is to respect private property, legal certainty, to stimulate investments to promote production and productivity, to generate confidence to spend from an economy of control to an economy of stimuli “.

“It’s not the best news for a May 1st,” he said AFP economist César Aristimuño. “While it is true that this generates a small incentive for many Venezuelans, in the end what we are going to see is an increase in prices, unfortunately.”

“As long as we do not generate a policy of industrial, social and economic growth, it will be very difficult for us to give Venezuelans purchasing power via wages,” he added. “There is no way to drive inflation out in a hyperinflationary economy by increasing wages and salaries.”

Venezuela is experiencing an economic collapse accentuated by hyperinflation, which records an annual rate of 3867%, according to the Observatory of Finances, but which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects at 5500% by the end of 2021.

The government of Nicolás Maduro, hit by international sanctions, led by the United States, which ignores him and favors his departure, had stopped announcing salary increases with great fanfare as in the days of his predecessor Hugo Chávez . In fact, the latest increase hasn’t even been officially released.