In two months, low-income sectors lost the improvement in consumption over two years

Low-income households are the ones who have most felt the impact of financial turmoil, devaluation, and price shifting. Consumption began to suffer in the second quarter of the year and much more in May, the month when the dollar jumped sharply. But for the most vulnerable sectors, which spend 57% of their income on mbad consumption, the drop between April and May has reached 2%, according to a report published yesterday by the expert Kantar WorldPanel

. low-income households, observed in 2017 and the first quarter of this year, suddenly stopped during the months of April and May, while the lower level, which represents 17% of households, recovered 3% of the volume. in the past year and 1% more between January and March 2018, but between April and May, these improvements were liquefied, said the commercial director of the consulting firm, Federico Filipponi

. The acceleration of inflation over the last few months, with the consequent loss of real wages, is decisive for this drop in consumption, and Kantar's mbad market basket prices have risen sharply. an annual variation of 17% to 2 1% last May "For low-income households, mbad consumption is the main expense, so price behavior is essential to understand the evolution. quickly, they have to adjust, "explains the manager.

report that in order to cope with the adverse conditions, these "Lower Lower" houses reduced the size of their purchases, stopped visiting supermarkets such as hypermarkets or wholesalers, and returned to the nearest trading point. neighborhood: warehouses and measurement, self-service. On average, at each point-of-sale visit, they earned 4% less from each category. "The size of purchases has not declined over the past three years, not even in 2016, and is a strong signal of the impact of the unfavorable context of recent months, where households are forced to reduce the amount bought to cope with the increases

In disaggregated terms, the main adjustment in recent months has been made in the category of beverages, especially non-alcoholic drinks, a category that these households buy more frequently, says the report.

The impact on the decline in consumption decreases as income rises.The "lower upper" level, which accounts for 33% of households, devotes 30% of its income to mbad consumption; "Low average" (28% of households), 15%, and the "high and medium" level, which represents 22% of households, contributes barely 7% of its resources to the purchase of food, drinks, toiletries and cleaning products e.

For Kantar, mbad consumption at the global level remained stable in May, while for consulting firm Scentia, there was a drop of 1.7%, with stagnation in major chains (the decline was only 0.1%) and a drop of 3.6% in warehouses and self-service stores.