New Monthly Minimum Wage In Venezuela Barely Enough To Buy Daily Cup Of Coffee

"Hungry"

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced a new increase in the minimum wage this year, but it’s only worth enough to purchase one a cup of coffee per day.

The new wage amounts to a daily income of 26,583 bolivars (US $0.26), which barely covers a coffee or a pie (20,000 bolivars US $0.2) at prices listed on December 31, 2017. Merely increasing the minimum wage won’t solve the economic problems facing Venezuela, which currently suffers from inflation of around 3,000 percent, as well as food and medicine shortages.

An average salary in Venezuela is 248,510 bolivars (US $2.20). With additional food stamps of 549,000 bolivars (US $5.49), the salary is barely equivalent to eight dollars. The income situation in Venezuela is so poor that a person earning a minimum wage can only buy six percent of most basic goods, which exceeded 13 million bolivars (US $130) in November 2017.

Maduro’s country has the lowest minimum wage in all of Latin America, despite his recent minimum wage increase and the six previous salary increases in 2017. A report in El Universal found monthly earnings in Venezuela to be the lowest of...Read More HERE