Pay is up under Chávez
by Jeremy Morgan, TDJ Staff
The Venezuelan president claims that the lot of the very poor has gotten less onerous under his rule. A recent survey conducted by consulting company Datanálisis suggests there may be some truth to that assertion. But that’s before you take into account the government’s struggle to rein in price rises.
People at the bottom of the economic pile have done better in raising their incomes since President Hugo Chávez came to power, at least in terms of percentages – although, of course, the wealthy and the prosperous are still streets ahead in the pay league.
That said, most everybody actually hasn’t been able to keep up with inflation, let alone beat the rate of price rises.
These are the broad conclusions to be drawn from a survey of income trends in Venezuela between 1998 and last year by consulting company Datanálisis – and they lend broad support to two of the president’s main claims on the pay front.
First, that the poorer sectors’ pay has improved by the largest margins; and, second, that the better off aren’t exactly suffering on the border of the bread line as a result.
Put another way, claims that Chávez is some sort of latter day Robin Hood, stripping the rich for the betterment of the lower orders look rather wide of the mark in the light of the figures – and by no stretch of the imagination could Datanálisis be written off as a pro-government toady.
Rather, the company tends to dish out the bad news in all directions, regardless of who might feel slighted. Back in the days when the opposition convinced itself that it would push the president out of power at the recall referendum in 2004, Datanálisis came under attack for suggesting that its polls suggested otherwise. In the more unbalanced circles, there were even mutterings about treachery.
Well this time, once the caveat about inflation is taken into account, the relatively good news for the people struggling right down there – social class E – on average got their pay up by a nominal (that is, not adjusted for inflation) 226 percent from a meager Bs.94.481 in 1998 to a still far from luxurious Bs.455,500 last year.
The downside to this was twofold. Social class E pay still wasn’t much above the minimum legal wage last year. And there are still a lot of them – as a proportion of the population, their number is actually rising: a flat 40 percent of Venezuelans were classed as Es in 1998, and by 2005, the comparable figure had risen to 44 percent.
At the other end of the income spectrum, posh people in Social Classes A and B didn’t do all that well, and their incomes fell relatively sharply in real terms. They chalked up an increase of just 151 percent rise from an average Bs.2,965,000 a month in 1998 to Bs.7.72 million last year.
At the same time, the figures throw doubt on the argument that the upper income groups are shrinking. In fact, they stayed at a constant three percent of the overall population during the years covered by the review.
In between, the Cs and Ds, who include people like artisans, craftsmen and skilled workers, storekeepers, clerks and hacks at the DJ, didn’t do too badly in relative terms, and again, it was the less well-off who did better in the percentage stakes.
The Ds pushed their wages up by 241 percent from Bs.199,870 in 1998 to Bs.789,200 last year. The Cs still managed to stay ahead of them, but the gap narrowed over the years, with average incomes in this social class rising by 193 percent from Bs.572,059 to Bs.1.7 million.
Taken together, these are the people who suffered the most severe squeeze in terms of real incomes after inflation is worked into the equation – and it would appear their numbers are shrinking as a proportion of the population.
In 1998, the Cs accounted for 18 percent of Venezuelan income earners. By last year, the corresponding figure was down to 16 percent. Similarly, the Ds declined from 39 percent to 37 percent over the same timespan.
The figures from a survey in Venezuela by Datanálisis support two of the president’s main claims on the pay front.
The Venezuelan president claims that the lot of the very poor has gotten less onerous under his rule. A recent survey conducted by consulting company Datanálisis suggests there may be some truth to that assertion. But that’s before you take into account the government’s struggle to rein in price rises.
People at the bottom of the economic pile have done better in raising their incomes since President Hugo Chávez came to power, at least in terms of percentages – although, of course, the wealthy and the prosperous are still streets ahead in the pay league.
That said, most everybody actually hasn’t been able to keep up with inflation, let alone beat the rate of price rises.
These are the broad conclusions to be drawn from a survey of income trends in Venezuela between 1998 and last year by consulting company Datanálisis – and they lend broad support to two of the president’s main claims on the pay front.
First, that the poorer sectors’ pay has improved by the largest margins; and, second, that the better off aren’t exactly suffering on the border of the bread line as a result.
Put another way, claims that Chávez is some sort of latter day Robin Hood, stripping the rich for the betterment of the lower orders look rather wide of the mark in the light of the figures – and by no stretch of the imagination could Datanálisis be written off as a pro-government toady.
Rather, the company tends to dish out the bad news in all directions, regardless of who might feel slighted. Back in the days when the opposition convinced itself that it would push the president out of power at the recall referendum in 2004, Datanálisis came under attack for suggesting that its polls suggested otherwise. In the more unbalanced circles, there were even mutterings about treachery.
Well this time, once the caveat about inflation is taken into account, the relatively good news for the people struggling right down there – social class E – on average got their pay up by a nominal (that is, not adjusted for inflation) 226 percent from a meager Bs.94.481 in 1998 to a still far from luxurious Bs.455,500 last year.
The downside to this was twofold. Social class E pay still wasn’t much above the minimum legal wage last year. And there are still a lot of them – as a proportion of the population, their number is actually rising: a flat 40 percent of Venezuelans were classed as Es in 1998, and by 2005, the comparable figure had risen to 44 percent.
At the other end of the income spectrum, posh people in Social Classes A and B didn’t do all that well, and their incomes fell relatively sharply in real terms. They chalked up an increase of just 151 percent rise from an average Bs.2,965,000 a month in 1998 to Bs.7.72 million last year.
At the same time, the figures throw doubt on the argument that the upper income groups are shrinking. In fact, they stayed at a constant three percent of the overall population during the years covered by the review.
In between, the Cs and Ds, who include people like artisans, craftsmen and skilled workers, storekeepers, clerks and hacks at the DJ, didn’t do too badly in relative terms, and again, it was the less well-off who did better in the percentage stakes.
The Ds pushed their wages up by 241 percent from Bs.199,870 in 1998 to Bs.789,200 last year. The Cs still managed to stay ahead of them, but the gap narrowed over the years, with average incomes in this social class rising by 193 percent from Bs.572,059 to Bs.1.7 million.
Taken together, these are the people who suffered the most severe squeeze in terms of real incomes after inflation is worked into the equation – and it would appear their numbers are shrinking as a proportion of the population.
In 1998, the Cs accounted for 18 percent of Venezuelan income earners. By last year, the corresponding figure was down to 16 percent. Similarly, the Ds declined from 39 percent to 37 percent over the same timespan.
The figures from a survey in Venezuela by Datanálisis support two of the president’s main claims on the pay front.
posted by Alice at
Sunday, May 21, 2006
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