13 pesos a day to live - Indec

[trennod]

So according to INDEC, a typical family of 4 would have been able to survive August on $1,555 pesos, being $52 pesos a day. This works out per person of $13 pesos a day ($390 pesos per person, per month).

This includes eating, clothing, rent, bills, education, health care.

Not only can you survive on this do they think, but you also wouldnt be considered poor.

http://www.clarin.com/politica/Datos-polemicos_0_779922006.html

 

[el_expatriado]

Try eating on $6 pesos a day. According to Indec that's what a person needs to feed themselves today in Argentina.

For 6 pesos a day, I could probably get all the carbohydrates needed with rice and beans, but try getting proteins with $6 pesos per day. Impossible. And forget about fruits and vegetables.

 

[ElQueso]

The article took INDEC's 13 pesos a day numbers and adjusted them for inflation and said the daily amount per person should really be $30 pesos, or $120 pesos a day for four and a monthly income of $3600 pesos, as what according to the government would be the poverty line (again, the government's numbers adjusted for real inflation, not INDEC's lies). That is for EVERYTHING.

One of my brothers-in-law and his wife have a little baby girl who is just about to complete her first year of existence on this planet, in this country. She's precious. Four teeth in the front, about to start walking, curious as hell. Cute as a button and sweeter than sugar.

Born into poverty.

He works in a verduleria and she just recently started working part time in a lavanderia. She has a sister who lives nearby and works part time as well, but takes care of the little one when the mother is at work.

He makes about 3800 pesos a month working 6 1/2 days a week, sometimes as much as 14 hours a day. He's in the white. She contributes about another $600 pesos a month. They get $200 pesos from the government for their kid. Altogether, then, about $4600 pesos a month. He pays $1200 a month rent. Another couple of hundred in utilities (includes basic cable - gotta have Canal de las Estrellas! One small luxury...). Probably about 300 pesos a month for the baby (specifically diapers - that's an estimate. I remember looking at diapers once with my wife, it seemed like we figured that expense around there). $400 pesos a month on payments for a relatively inexpensive washing machine and a bed and a table and some clothes for themselves (we bought them a stroller for their baby - those things are expensive!).

If he were to save 10% of their income (call it $500 pesos to make the numbers round), let's say, he would have about $2000 left to spend on food, cellphone, train, clothes and incidental expenses. $66 pesos a day for the family, $22 a person.

I could be off in his specific expenses a couple of hundred pesos a month. Maybe by as much as that magical $6.66 number per day we've all talked about. And also, when they pay off the loans in a couple of months, they may actually be able to start saving something. As well, I haven't counted his aguinaldo because he uses that to visit home, but that's a total of $315 a month, or $11 a day, or $3 a day per person. But I also haven't included medications for when they or the baby gets sick (they still have to buy their antibiotics and such) and I'm sure other things.

The reality is, he really only saves a couple hundred pesos most months, so he's really surviving on roughly $77 a day, $26 per person for JUST everyday expenses, excluding the big monthly items. More or less. That's just shy of the TOTAL monthly income at $3600 pesos, when compared per person per day, that the article mentions UCA says should be the government's numbers adjusted for inflation. (Not sure if the $3600 adjusted number came from UCA and that's what they're basing their poverty line on, giving the 22% poverty, or if the writer of the article performed that calculation, therefore I'm not real sure if UCA's poverty percentage was based on that adjusted number, or some number separate that they came up with)

They are poor. Even at $1000 pesos a month more than the inflation-adjusted figures.

If we weren't buying their daughter clothes (they buy clothes too, but they can't afford much) and helping them out with things like payments on a washing machine through our bank account, allowing him to crash on our futon in the den on occasion when he's worked a 14 hour day and is too tired to take the train at night to get home and has to get up early the next day, etc, etc - they'd be in pretty bad shape. Relatively speaking.

I guess we all define poverty differently.

6.5% poverty according to INDEC, 22% according to UCA. I don't even agree with UCA's number.

$3600 pesos a month. $764 USD a month for 4 people at the official rate, or $580 USD at the blue rate. That's not much money, really. But almost $11,000 USD a year at the official rate comparison - I could almost believe it, if prices weren't so high and inflation wasn't so rampant. Is $7000 USD a year reasonable (at the blue rate, which I think most agree is the more realistic value of the peso, at least when compared with the official rate) even to make the poverty line for 4 people?

I don't know, maybe in the other provinces. Here in Buenos Aires?

Well, my brother-in-law and his family eat. Tough, cheap meat, lots of pasta and milenesa and mandioca, and fortunately, since he works at a verduleria and gets a good discount and sometimes some freebies (given, not taken), some decent vegetables and fruits.

Just enough to survive in what I would consider miserable conditions. They live in a breezy, leaky, moldy hovel well outside of General Paz. They couldn't find a "hotel" in the city, close to work, that would accept a baby which was big and decent enough - forget a kitchen or bathroom in the room for anywhere near the same price as where they live. (Hell, two of my brothers-in-law share a room in a hotel that's barely big enough to fit a double bed [which they share], a falling-apart ropero and a chair for that price - bathroom and kitchen down the hall shared by about 20 people.)

Of course, they own no property, know no one who can guarantee an apartment (I would, but I don't own anything and it was hard enough for me to find that myself), so as many of the poor here, they are excluded from the possibility of finding a decent little apartment and are relegated to the sometimes very fickle (when it comes to children) hotels or places outside the city.

Or a villa.

They refuse to live in a villa. I applaud them for that. That would be a very easy choice to make for many, and they know many who do live in a villa for that very reason. Very cheap, but far worse living conditions and can be very dangerous. Their area is relatively safe. It is better than where they come from originally...

Wow.

Poverty sucks bad enough, but anywhere in the world where politicians are creating poverty, or allowing it to happen, to take advantage of it in order to suit their own ends - that's a crime against humanity.

TANSTAAFL. Everyone needs an opportunity, and should be encouraged, to work hard for yourself, and provide for yourself and your family. Argentina is a prime example where a large group of people have been kept so ignorant and dependent on the government (at least to hear the government talk) that the level of poverty here would probably be considered indigent in the US and other "developed" nations but the government uses it and lies about it at the same time to suit their own ends.

So many accept it, even with the inflation-adjusted figures.

 

[jp]

The INDEC figures weren't about a the spending of "typical family of four" - they provided a baseline number which established the minimum a family had to spend on food without becoming malnourished. The aim of the study was to establish how much of the population were unable to adequately provide for their own nutrition.

The media and their parrots quickly recast a figure designed to establish an absolute measure of poverty into "what the typical family spends". Predictable outrage follows, and predictably, nobody questions the veracity of the media's reporting.

I spend less than a 120 pesos a day on feeding my family, and live a comfortable upper middle class life. There's no way you can claim that the poverty line for food starts at 120 pesos, thats ridiculous.

 

[citygirl]

120 pesos a day was the number for ALL living expenses (rent, food, clothing, etc).

And that was the adjusted number. I think we could all agree that living, feeding, paying rent, etc for a family of 4 on 3600 pesos would be really, really difficult and that's the adjusted figure. The government says you can live on 1550 a month - again, for ALL living expenses. Which is so beyond the reality that it leaves me speechless.

 

[jp]

I don't understand why people overlook the objective of these figures - which isn't to establish "what the typical family spends", its to establish "whats the minimum people need to survive".

Clarin helpfully lists the following as the expenses of those living in poverty:

"Dice que eso es lo que necesita una persona para comer, viajar, ir al médico, vestirse, estudiar y alquilar"

Yup, although its a baseline measure of absolute poverty, apparently people living in poverty need private education and healthcare, as opposed to the free options. There's a huge difference between relative poverty and absolute poverty. The INDEC numbers are trying to establish absolute poverty.

Somehow I doubt Clarin counts many people who are malnourished amongst their readership. I doubt many rely on free education and healthcare either. So once again, the story becomes about "what clarin readers feel is the cost of living" instead of "what percentage of the population are homeless and malnourished"

 

[citygirl]

JP - Do you think that a family of 4 could live on 1550 pesos a month? Seriously?

Whether or not you agree with Clarin or not, honestly ask yourself how you think a family of 4 would pay for rent, clothing, transportation to their job, food, etc on 1550 pesos a month? And then tell me that's even within the realm of possibility.

Do you think the figure of 3600 proposed by Clarin is too high for a family of 4? Do you think that's living the high life?

And you do realize that typically schools here, even "free" schools require parents to spend money for field trips, projects, etc. You also realize that the "viajar" refers to taking the subways or bondis. And that "going to the doctor" may refer to purchasing things like aspirin, etc. And that many poor people can't afford to take a day off of work to spend sitting in a free hospital so they may be forced to spend money to see a private one. Etc, etc.

I'm honestly shocked that there is even a discussion about this or the fact that the gov'ts numbers are blatantly unrealistic.

 

[ElQueso]

JP, I'm surprised YOU overlook the purpose of these figures.

It is to show that Argentina has only 6.5% poverty. That's the ONLY thing those figures are for.

I was looking a bit last night online and saw that the US marks itself as having 15% of its population in poverty (ridiculous - people there have no idea what poverty is. They have indeed forgotten necessity to survive versus want to have). The poverty line for a family of 4 is $23,050.

Wow. Can you believe that Argentina is actually richer than the United States of America? People make less money here and the US has 2 1/3 times more poverty than Argentina does.

Even according to UCA's poverty line figures, Argentina isn't that far from the US - a difference of a mere 7% of the population in poverty between the US and here (7% more instead of 8.5% lower). I don't know where exactly the UCA numbers came from, and I don't believe those either at least not by what I consider poverty, but they're at least closer to reality than the government's. But I've been around the country - unless one's definition of poverty level STARTS really, really low, there's no way that Argentina isn't closer to the 40% level (or higher) than the 22% - either way far, far away from the 6.5% number.

If you can feed a family of 4 for $3600 pesos a month, more power to you. I'm not sure how many family members you have, so I assume you were making a comparison of similar quantities. I spend a bit more on food alone, but not too terribly much, for 4 people.

But no one actually said that $120 pesos a day was just for food. It makes me wonder how carefully you read both the article and what I wrote. In fact, my brother-in-law pays a lot more than food out of his "$120 a day."

And he's poor. He rides the train, brings his bike and rides to work from the train stop, doesn't have private health care (not sure what your point about all that was - I don't recall anyone saying that poor people want private schooling and private health care, or expect it - of course not - they're poor!). He barely makes ends meet in a situation 10 times worse than I ever experienced when I was poor and starting out when I was his age in the States.

His income is 3 times what the government has considered to be the POVERTY LINE, ABOVE WHICH (even 1 peso, remember?) a family of 4 IS NOT CONSIDERED to be living in POVERTY.

That's what was said, and now Argentina can hold up their heads and say they are richer than the United States.

Yeehaw.

P.S. I should add that my brother-in-law doesn't complain - he's got it better than he did in Paraguay. The complaints are mine. I know it shouldn't be even nearly as bad as it is and I hate that the government lies so blatantly about it, and uses those very same poor people as pawns in their control game.

 

[Napoleon]

Try eating on $6 pesos a day. According to Indec that's what a person needs to feed themselves today in Argentina.

For 6 pesos a day, I could probably get all the carbohydrates needed with rice and beans, but try getting proteins with $6 pesos per day. Impossible. And forget about fruits and vegetables.

If you want your protein, you'll have to check out "Huevos para todos!"

Along with porotos, eggs are the only source of protein that is feasible on $3-$6 pesos/day.

 

[Conorworld]

Can you even buy a Ugis pizza with that much? Actually on that matter how much is a Ugis pizza these days?