BA Cheapest Major City in Latin America

Xeneizes said:
New job is great. Love the international atmosphere of the company, just finishing preliminary training. I think my time here is going to be very valuable for many different reasons, and I love this city already (and have yet to explore most of it)

Wonderful news!
 
Brazilian wage sale is quite a bit higher than Argentina's, as is Chile's.
 
Well I think original point is still valid, I wouldn't live in any of them if I was forced to get by on the average local salary, they are all quite expensive when viewed from this perspective.
 
jb5 said:
Brazilian wage sale is quite a bit higher than Argentina's, as is Chile's.

Can expats "move" (with a tourist visa) to either Brazil or Chile and work "en negro" like they can in Argentina?
 
I tink in Brazil, you have to leave every 6 months. But IMO, why would they want to? Trade in BA for Sao Paulo or Santiago? Crazy!
 
Xeneizes said:
In reality it's just my completely uneducated and speculative opinion that these countries are less developed, so I very well could be wrong.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. At least about Brazil. While the country as a whole is much less developed, the largest city in Brazil, Sao Paulo, is in imho leaps and bounds more "advanced" than Buenos Aires could ever dream of being. While SP has never appealed to me it is much more like a London, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, than Buenos Aires will be in the near future. While the infrastructure in Buenos Aires boasts developed nation sophistication it falls short in nearly ever other category: cuisine, public transportation, international flair, financial hub, and so on and so on.

Since the survey is about major cities in LA probably wiser to keep the discussion at the micro level, rather than looking at countries as a whole. The northeast of Brazil is severely underdeveloped....the South is not. In Brazil unskilled wages are just as low as in Argentina but skilled wages are higher. Not as high as European or American wages but higher than Argentine wages for sure. But then again the cost of living is higher too, a fact begrudged by middle class Brazilians all the time...so maybe it's a wash?
 
Philsword said:
Sounds about right but so what. These surveys never take into account the differences in what people earn in different places. A better scale would be what the average person earns versus what it costs to live of a particular place. If you did it on this basis B.A. would be quite expensive as local wages are very low.

The UBS survey, as its title suggests, does take into account what people earn in the various cities as well as what things cost. On p. 6 of the survey this is made explicit:
"Who can afford the most?
Comparing domestic prices for a universal basket of goods
against the corresponding domestic wage level allows us to
examine the difference in relative purchasing power. Therefore
people working in Zurich, who lead our index, can afford the
most domestically in relation to the other cities we surveyed."


According to the list entitled "Domestic Purchasing Power" on p. 6 the residents of Sao Paulo, Rio, and Bogota all have greater domestic purchasing power than Portenos, i.e , it is easier for working residents of those cities to make ends meet than it is for residents of BA. The residents of Santiago, Caracas, Lima, and Mexico City have less purchasing power than those of BA.

According to the survey, absolute prices are cheaper in BA than any other Lat Am city so it would be the cheapest Lat Am city for an expat with a foreign income to live in. Prices (excluding rent) in Sao Paulo and Rio are now higher than in many European cities. Given the ever increasing (over)valuation of the Brasilian R$ these cities are getting to be very expensive for tourists and expats living there on fixed dollar incomes. Trust me, I know.
 
http://en.mercopress.com/2011/08/17...ewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily

The world's 20 most expensive cities: 1: Oslo; 2: Zurich; 3: Geneva; 4: Copenhagen; 5: Stockholm; 6: Tokyo; 7: Sydney; 8: Helsinki; 9: Toronto; 10: Singapore; 11: Vienna; 12: Paris; 13: Luxembourg; 14: New York; 15: London; 16: Munich; 17: Montreal; 18: Frankfurt; 19: Sao Paulo; 20: Dublin.

Regarding the wage index, (based on the wage, social insurance contribution and working hours data for 14 occupations worldwide to arrive at a net wage level after taxes and payroll deductions), Sao Paulo ranks 38, followed by Rio do Janeiro, 44; Bogotá, 54; Santiago de Chile, 56; Lima, 60; Buenos Aires, 61; Caracas, 62 and Mexico City, 67.
 
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