The strategy in an election year is the same that has been repeated for a long time: get the perception of income improvement to provide a favorable opinion floor of public opinion to translate into a flow of votes. Of course, with the intention it does not reach and, among others, what most gravitates in the last decade at least, is inflation that at the same time undermines purchasing power and sows the economic activity of uncertainty. That and not another is the short -term objective of the economic policy since the second half of next year: reach the polls with the feeling of the game dominated controlling inflation and deactivating the negative expectations of the horizon.
Floor and roof. The last measurement of INDEC threw 1.6%, accumulating 15.1% in the first half and 39.4% year -on -year, but the average hides many heterogeneous figures. In June, the price of goods gave 0.8% but that of services, showed 3.2%, that is, exactly the double, dragged by the indexing of private services and public rates (+3.4% in the housing area) and that of other regulated prices (+2.2%).
Also real wages measured by the index Ripte (which records those who accrue pension contributions) showed a great recovery for May: it increased to $ 1,428,000 per monthwhich implies a 1.86% more than in April and 62.5% more than in May 2024, against year -on -year inflation of 43.5% in that month. Of course, although this year’s average was already 11.5% more than that of all 2024, it is still 3.4% below the average of the year 2023.
On the other hand, the level of poverty, that had reached its peak in April-September 2024 (52%) The lowest level would be showing for the first semester since the second half of 2018: 31.6%, according to the Poverty Nowcast estimator, which the economist prepares Martín González Rosadaof the Di Tella University.
This package of good news, however, came just at times that the economic program seemed besieged for attempts to remove its fundamental stone: the fiscal surplus. Measured as a percentage of GDP, the public sector registered a positive result of 0.1% in June and accumulates 1% of GDP in the first semester. It is that figure that allows the treasure to decompress the demand for additional funds in the domestic market and, of course, to free the monetary issuance for the operations to buy dollars committed to the accumulation of the agreement with the International Monetary Fundamong other purposes.
Mobile white. Precisely, the electoral year also feeds the pressures that, on three fronts, the government feels harassed in its attempt to maintain the oxygen of the fiscal accounts: the reform in pension issues voted by the Senate, the automation of the Contributions of the National Treasury (ATN) and the attempt to defrost funds for the paralysis of public works.
According to estimates IDESAthe combo of reforms to the pension system would take 0.9% of GDP annually, that is almost the entire surplus generated so far. The 7.2% recomposition in the salaries that was hung by the change of readjustment formula since January last year, would cost 0.43% of GDP, But if the bonus increase is added (from $ 70,000 to $ 110,000) that would cost 0.3% and the extension of the moratorium for two years (0.17%) it reaches that figure by 2026 and half if hypothetically does not veto and it is firm for the second semester of 2025.
The other request of the governors, was the automation of the ATN, set in the Federal Copartition Law, the provinces would receive $ 335,000 million which would be distributed according to their established percentage. Although Buenos Aires is the one that receives the most (21%) is also the most punished for decades by this system.
Finally, the other slice that the provinces that want to show works in their territories are the distribution of fuel tax. According to a study by Ieral, it came to contribute 1% of GDP in 2017, but between 2022 and 2023 its produced fell strongly for not being fully updated by the inflation of the period. Since 2024 it was recomposed and provided between 0.4% and 0.5% of GDP, half that in 2017.
The economist Matías Surtof Invecq He points out that capital spending in 2024 was 1.9% of GDP, which is 53% lower than in the average of the last 20 years. “National expenditure fell 80% and that of the provinces 27%”, Highlights, marking the other program setting variable.
The thermometer How could it be otherwise, these things end up impacting the demand of the dollar, usual refuge in the face of uncertainty: It rose more than 5% during July, partly recovering from the fall of the previous month, but above all recomposing against the rise of the CPI. Just in case, the economist Salvador Vitelli Calculate that Central Bank I already intervened with operations by US $ 2.7 billion in the future, also balancing the purchase of foreign exchange (they had been more than US $ 500 million for the second week of the month).
That is, considering that in July the agreed operations are completed before the benefit of retentions (they had already entered US $ 2.7 billion and the figure could stretch up to US $ 3.5 billion), the last part of the year will have an estimate of US $ 2 billion per month, a considerable decline, which challenges external balance and reinforces the need to keep the fiscal surplus. “The jump of the nominal exchange rate, of not counteracting, would translate into an improvement in real terms, which could bring some relief to external accounts”he explains Esteban Domecq In your weekly report.
The unknown is whether this exchange movement could slide to the inflationary index. In the survey of retail prices made by the consultant Eco Go The projection of your rpm da 1.7% for the month of July. “Despite the rate of the exchange rate, a remarkable ‘pass-through’ is not evidenced in survey ”he explains in his analysis. For its part, Camilo Tiscorniadirector of C&T Economic Advisorshe argues that for now and taking into account what the dollar has already uploaded, there was no greater transfer at prices. So far in July, the data of the C&T price survey for the GBA region show little change in the dynamics in relation to June, except for the usual acceleration that occurs in items linked to tourism, which usually has a peak in the month by the winter holidays. “I would like to wait to see how this follows, the exchange rate and prices “anticipates and adds that, although the government says that it lets the dollar float, that does not mean that they are not so much here intervening through the futures at some specific moments and The movements of fees with the disarmament of the Lefi, which are carried out with an eye on the evolution of the dollar. Attentive and vigilantes.
