2023-05-09 23:40:28
In any supermarket you can see the price increase in the shopping cart that affects all pockets at a general level, but the effects of this inflation are not the same for everyone. It affects the most vulnerable, and there is a indicator that makes this inequality evident: the health of the population. Purchasing power is a determining factor –although not the only one– in the quality of food and other habits (for example, playing sports), so that if the purchasing power of families falls, as is happening in these times of inflation , the most vulnerable families see their health most affected than others who can maintain their purchasing power. There are family budgets for which the problem is no longer getting to the end of the month but rather putting a proper dish on the table. A study of the Pau Gasol Foundation He points out, for example, a particular case, the percentage of childhood obesity, which reaches 16% in the most disadvantaged households (higher than 11.2% on average). This food gap, warn doctors consulted by this newspaper, is increasing. And there are reasons for concern, because although the general CPI index moderates, the price of food continues to rise each month, and the drought may end up aggravating the situation. One of the first signs of poverty is the disappearance in the shopping cart of fresh foods, which are the healthiest but also the most expensive. Nor are they common products in food banks, which confirm a significant increase in people who resort to them.
Fighting inflation is an objective that moves in the field of macroeconomics but if we land on its effects on family economies, it directly affects public health and social equity. It is important to highlight this fact, for example when assessing measures such as the rise in rates by the European Central Bank, which aims to prevent inflationary escalation even if it entails painful consequences such as making loans more expensive. Nor is it easy to find a balance in public policies that allow citizens to alleviate the increase in the cost of living without compromising the State’s accounts beyond what is prudent. In the same way that austerity at all costs is counterproductive (we already saw it in the euro crisis), so is maintaining an unsustainable public debt that ends up taking its toll in the long term.
Focus on the most vulnerable
For all of the above, in the face of more or less populist proposals to apply general bonuses to food prices with effects that would be at least debatable (if it is generalized, it may end up being innocuous) or occurrences such as the creation of public supermarkets, it is preferable to concentrate public policies and spending in responding to those groups that are suffering the most from inflation. You also have to keep working on agreed measures that avoid social conflict. These days we have had a good example of this in the wage agreement between employers and unions, which contemplates a moderate increase so as not to further devalue wages, but which gives companies room to continue generating growth and employment.
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