TO ANALYSE – The rise in prices at a rate not seen in 40 years is reducing the purchasing power of wage income which is not indexed. But it penalizes even more investments whose rates of return and capital are washed out.
No one can ignore it because it has become a mantra in public debate and the media: inflation hits the most modest first and foremost, who devote a large part of their budget to food and energy expenditure. When publishing the consumer price index each month, INSEE also takes great care to specify what is happening for the 20% of households with the lowest incomes. Thus, prices increased by 6.3% for the latter (between August 2021 and August 2022) against 5.9% for the population as a whole.
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The gaps widen all the more as we observe specific social categories. Farmers, for example, experience inflation that is 1.1 percentage points higher than the national average. And conversely, young people under 30 benefit from a rate 0.9 points lower than the standard according to INSEE. The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies therefore goes against student unions when…