New data from Brazil’s Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) shows that last year’s high inflation was felt far less by the country’s richest classes.
Breaking down inflation according to income brackets, Ipea showed that the poor felt the pinch much harder for most of the pandemic — as consumer prices rose faster among basic products, which represent a larger share of poor households’ monthly spending. But as prices continued to rise throughout 2021, they reached more expensive items, such as household utilities, rent, and personal care products.
Lower-middle- and middle-income consumers experienced the sharpest rise in prices last year, of 10.4 and 10.3 percent, respectively. The upper-middle- and high-income classes were the only brackets for which 12-month inflation stayed within the single digits.
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