“A surge of almost 30% in energy prices and 8% in fresh produce: the inflation we are experiencing today is particularly unequal, since it primarily affects non-compressible expenses” : while the rise in prices in the euro zone reached 7.5% in March – the highest rate since the creation of the single currency – the economist Eric Heyer does not beat the bush. “Inflation always results in the impoverishment of populations”, continues Eric Dor, director of economic studies at the Ieseg School of Management. With a rise to 4.5% in France in March, the purchasing power of employees is eroding, the savings of savers are melting and “it’s a disaster for small pensioners”.
The situation is all the more worrying since the phenomenon is not, as many still assured in the fall of 2021, temporary. The prospect of a long war in Ukraine, the persistence of tensions in supply chains linked to confinements in China, the costs of the energy transition: everything seems to indicate that inflation will remain structurally high.
One in two households plans to cut spending
Households are not mistaken. “Never, since 1972, have they anticipated such a widespread rise in prices”recalls Alain Tourdjman, research and forecasting director of the BPCE group. It must be said that we had not exceeded 3% inflation in France since the mid-1980s. » Moreover, the one observed today “is about energy and food. Households therefore suffer the impact very quickly”. In any case, faster than the increases affecting clothing, travel… less essential on a daily basis.
They have therefore already drawn the consequences: the wealthiest are starting to dip into the savings accumulated during the Covid-19, the most modest are reviewing their priorities. According to the latest “Consumer Trends” survey by the Research Center for the Study and Observation of Living Conditions (Crédoc), not yet published, 48% of households – but 69% among the least privileged – were considering, in February , to reduce their expenses “in the coming months”. In July 2021, this figure was only 34%, despite the Covid-19 crisis.
With this tighter budget, consumers know that they will, willy-nilly, spend larger sums on, in order, food, cars, medical care and energy, to the detriment of others. expense items such as clothing or household appliances. “But in low-income families, trade-offs can be made on essential positions”, says Sandra Hoibian, director of the Society division at Crédoc, recalling that “during the crisis [financière] of 2008, young people had to reduce their food expenses.
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