Welfare Basket 2020, background, comparison and methodological proposal

Abstract

Since of 2019, the International Observatory of Living Wages began the construction of a "Well-being Basket" as the set of goods and services to which an individual must have access with their purchasing power for their personal development and that of their family. In this sense, this paper aims to update the cost of the 2019 basket while making some important methodological clarifications that allow longitudinal monitoring of the selected products. The purpose is not to lose sight of the enormous gap that exists between the cost of the welfare basket and the minimum wage to promote the continuation of the wage recovery policies that the President of the Republic began in 2018. It is highlighted that by 2020 the cost of the basket had a marginal advance, even below general inflation, which reflects an advance in the purchasing power of wages and national price stability.