Class C spends a third of income on food

Class C families, who earn between R$5,200 and R$13,000 a month, spend on average one third, the equivalent of 33.3%, of their income on food, according to a survey released this Tuesday (25th). ) by the Locomotive Institute. Among class B families, with an income of R$ 13,000 to R$ 26,000, the percentage of income committed to food drops to 13.2%.

For families with incomes between R$1,300 and R$5,200, classified as classes D and E, more than half of the money received monthly (50.7%) is spent on food.

The study was commissioned by the benefits company VR.

According to the study, for class C, benefits such as meal vouchers and food stamps represent, on average, between 3% and 8.5% of spending on food. For classes D and E, these benefits cover 33% of these expenses.

Class C, according to the survey, represents approximately 109 million people in Brazil, most of them black (60%). Almost half of these families are headed by women (49%) and 52% of this population did not complete high school. “Headed by women because part is a single mother”, details the president of the Locomotiva Institute, Renato Meirelles.

purchasing power

In recent years, in a process aggravated by the covid-19 pandemic, Meirelles said that there was a loss of purchasing power for these families. “Five years ago, 40% of the value of a minimum wage was enough to buy a basic food basket. Today, 59% of the minimum wage is enough to buy a basic food basket. That is, the purchasing power of food, of basic items, has decreased, ”he explained.

Therefore, according to him, these consumers have become even more attentive to the products they consume. “A radicalization of cost-effectiveness, which becomes much more demanding in the products they are buying, in the quality versus price ratio of what they are buying”, he points out.

In this layer of the population, strategies, as adopted by several brands, to reduce the size of packages or the quality of the composition of products as a way of disguising price increases tend, according to Meirelles, to be especially frowned upon. “The cost of error in class C is much higher. So, if the C class consumer buys a product that is cheaper, but does not deliver what it promises, he will have to eat that product the whole month, because the money he had for that product was counted”, he explains about the impact of reduced quality on these families.

“Within what fits in his pocket, he will seek the best quality, this is the movement that is here to stay, that will not change”, adds the researcher.

indebtedness

According to the survey, eight out of ten families in the C class have outstanding debts, and one out of three is in default. According to Meirelles, debts are often contracted as a way of guaranteeing the consumption of basic items. “When the salary ends and the month does not, the C class who have a credit card go to the supermarket or pharmacy and buy with their credit card to gain 20 days to pay”, she said.