Inflation in Armenia has intensified since the beginning of the year. Wage growth has slowed down and inflation has accelerated. This means that this year the ordinary citizen, who only relies on salary and has no other income, will not live well. On the contrary, many people will live worse because their incomes will not increase due to price increases.

Of course, this does not apply to the ruling political team, the members of the CP who hold public positions and are richly fed by state funds, who receive not only high salaries, but also bonuses and other incomes in excess of the salary. The incomes of these people are so high now that inflation, even activated inflation, does not change much in their life and lifestyle. Now they receive so much income that they can not only not notice the inflation, but also afford to buy expensive houses, apartments, cars and continue to live a luxurious life.

The impact of inflation is felt first of all by those citizens whose incomes, anyway, barely met the minimum needs, if, of course, they did. If they didn’t satisfy, now they won’t satisfy more, and these people will have to be satisfied with less now. Acceleration of inflation is a problem especially for the socially disadvantaged groups of the society, which are quite a large number in Armenia today.

According to official data, the rate of inflation in Armenia has accelerated by almost 40 percent since the beginning of the year. Average inflation reached 4.5 percent. But it still does not say much to an ordinary citizen living on a salary, because he feels the impact of price increases on him to a much greater extent than the 4.5 percent inflation. It is expressed first of all through price increases coming from the markets of food and basic necessities. Food products, according to the latest data, managed to increase in price by 7.8 percent. That’s after last year’s 5.4 percent inflation.

Cumulative food inflation in Armenia was 13.2 percent in two years.

Now imagine what kind of heavy burden of price increases is borne by the citizen whose incomes have hardly increased during 2 years or have increased less than the cumulative inflation. But let’s leave cumulative inflation aside and talk about this year’s inflationary manifestations.

In March, compared to March of the previous year, food prices in Armenia increased by 7.8 percent. Meanwhile, the average salary increased by 5.3 percent. We also know whose account it was. There are 2-3 areas where salary increases occur, which leads to an increase in the average salary, although many working citizens usually do not feel this increase. For example, minimum wage workers, whose salary was AMD 75,000 3 years ago, and it is now. And those people, in the same way as bureaucrats who receive millions, are affected by inflation.

Wage increases elude many, instead they face inflation at every turn. According to the latest data, compared to last year, the average salary in Armenia increased by 14.9 thousand drams. We are talking about the so-called dirty salary increase. If we remove the taxes, the increase will be barely 10-11 thousand drams. But it was mainly at the expense of high salary earners. In organizations with up to 50 employees, where people receive a maximum of 238 thousand drams on average, according to official data, the average salary, which is not yet taxed, has increased by only 3.5-4 thousand drams in the last 1 year. It is about 340,000 workers, who make up almost 42 percent of working citizens.

The average salaries of these people increased by only 1.7-2.5 percent in 1 year. During that same period, the rate of inflation was twice as high.

In the case of food products, the rate of inflation has more than tripled the rate of increase in wages received by those 340 thousand working citizens.

Do you think these people started to live better or worse?

It is clear that it is worse than they lived at least one, maybe several years ago.

Taking into account the fact that there is no hope of raising the minimum wage this year, and as we can see, the wages of low-wage citizens are growing much slower than the accelerating inflation, which means that they will not live well in the near future, they will live even worse than today.

According to official data, the highest inflation in the food market this year was recorded in the case of eggs. Compared to the previous year, the price of eggs has increased by more than 30 percent. There are other products whose inflation is close to it, but let’s assume that these products are not very vitally important for citizens. However, we cannot say the same, for example, about meat products, which recorded double-digit inflation. The price of beef has increased the most, by more than 15 percent in the last 1 year. The inflation of lamb meat is close to 14 percent, and the price of pork meat has increased by 12 percent.

The inflation of fish products was relatively low. Trout has increased in price by 3 percent this year, but after the sharp price increase of the previous year. The price of that same trout increased by 21.5% last year, and this year the prices have increased by 3% on top of 21.5%.

Let’s move to the dairy market, where twelve-month inflation in March was 12.8 percent.

After last year’s almost 14 percent inflation, vegetable oil is expensive by another 9.5 percent. In the last 1 year, the inflation of butter was 8.2 percent, cheese – 8.1 percent.

Bread products, fruits and vegetables have become more expensive. Vegetables, especially after last year’s sharp price increase.

We are not talking about the price increases of non-food products, let alone services. And hundreds and thousands of citizens, including working citizens, whose wages hardly increase or increase much less than inflation, are affected by all of these.

Nikol Pashinyan and the CP members, who from time to time claim that they have improved people’s lives, now let them say whether these 340,000 working citizens, or 42 percent of employees, whose wage growth rate was at least twice lower than the average inflation, three times lower than food inflation, are they living better or worse.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN

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