Portuguese inflation measured in September this year compared to the same month of 2021 jumped to a three-decade high of the order of 9.3%, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) said yesterday, confirming its first estimate. at the end of the year. September.
But the national tax has different realities and limitations. Yesterday, INE detailed for the first time the inflation figures in which it is possible to see the different effects of the rise in the cost of living by region, by type of consumption, etc. Again, several records were broken.
In terms of costs related to final consumption of essential goods, the North region appears to be the most affected in the country by the rise in prices.
In the north, the average price of food rose 17.7% in just one year until last September.
The national average is 16.4%.
The second most expensive region is the metropolitan region of Lisbon, with an inflation of 16.6% in food products.
It should be noted that the group referred to as “food and non-alcoholic beverages” has the greatest weight in the standardized basket used to calculate the Consumer Price Index (CPI). It is worth about 22% of the considered cost.
In regions with a higher density of poverty and inequality, the weight of food consumption clearly tends to absorb more of household and end-user spending.
Therefore, the higher the inflation here, the greater the pressure to push families into increasingly difficult situations in managing their current budgets.
Another important CPI item with the highest weight are, of course, energy products, including light, gas, diesel, gasoline and heating fuels.
End consumers in the Lisbon region feel the pain the most: in September the annual inflation rate in this class of products was 23.9%.
The North region appears to be quite affected, a few tenths away, with annual inflation of 23.1% and above the national average of about 22.2% in energy, according to INE data.
There are clear signs that the regions that concentrate more tourism and the passage of people may be contaminated by sharper price increases.
The product leading the inflation measured in September at the national level is unsurprisingly that of “restaurants and hotels”: according to INE, the year-on-year increase in prices in this sector group was almost 18%. It is practically double the national average inflation (the aforementioned 9.3%).
In short. Portugal is currently registering an inflation rate that is already over 9%. The metropolitan region of Lisbon leads this global indicator with a superlative of 9.9%. The north of the country is facing an overall price increase of 9.4%.
The least affected regions, although with high inflation for the history of the last decades of the euro, are the Azores (6.4%) and Alentejo (7.6%).
National, non-regional EO
Given the dispersion in prices (by region, by consumption profile of the millions of resident households), it is clear that the averages on which state budgets are based can cause distortions or serve some less than others.
The new proposal for the National Budget for 2023 (OE2023) predicts that national inflation will remain at 7.4% this year and fall sharply to 4% in 2023.
For example, the statutory pension increase in 2023, which would result from inflation of around 7%, was eventually (about half) exhausted by a liquidity anticipation scheme in the name of fighting the crisis.
But an average retiree from the North or Lisbon region may already be dealing with major purchasing power erosion. Suffice it to say that inflation in these two regions exceeds the national average.
In the case of the poorest retirees, the majority, even worse. With a greater propensity (essentially being forced) to spend more money on food, electricity and gas, we may be talking about people whose actual inflation, felt, could be around 7% or 8% these days, when food it already costs 11% more in the case of food (national average of the increase recorded from January to September, according to DV calculations based on INE data).
The same problem usually arises with the expected increase in the minimum wage. For the most precarious or young workers, with a predictable propensity to consume more essential goods, the 7.8% increase for 2023 may also be short-lived.
It is true that there is some social support to mitigate these effects of rampant inflation and the risk of poverty that come with the most “vulnerable” layers.
Luís Reis Ribeiro is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
