In almost every corner of the world, people spend more on food and fuel, housing rentals, and transportation.
But inflation does not affect everyone equally. For migrants with relatives who depend on the money they send home, higher prices hit families twice: at home and abroad.
Migrant workers who send cash to loved ones in another country often save less because rising prices force them to spend more. For some, the only option is to work more, with weekend and night shifts, or take on a second job.
For others, it means cutting back on staples like meat and fruit so they can send what’s left of their savings to their families, who sometimes live under the threat of hunger or violence.
Carlos Huerta, a 45-year-old Mexican who works as a driver in New York City, used to send about $200 a week, but now he can barely save about $100 a week.
Across the Atlantic, Lissa Jataas, 49, sends about 200 euros ($195) each month from her office job in Cyprus to her family in the Philippines. To save money, she looks for cheaper food at the store and buys clothes at a charity shop.
Economies already battered by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of climate change suffered yet another setback with Russia’s war in Ukraine, which sent food and energy prices skyrocketing.
Those costs plunged 71 million people into poverty around the world in the weeks after the February invasion, which disrupted crucial grain exports from the Black Sea region, according to the United Nations Development Program.
When fuel and food cost more, the money migrants can send home doesn’t go as far as it used to. The International Monetary Fund estimates that global inflation will reach 9.5% this year, but the figure is much higher in developing countries.
“The poorest people spend much more of their income on food and energy,” said Max Lawson, head of inequality at anti-poverty organization Oxfam.
Inflation, he noted, “fans the flames” of inequality. “It’s almost as if the poor are a kind of sponge that has to absorb the economic blow,” she explained.
In New York, Huerta has lived away from his wife and children for nearly 20 years. He has worked as a dishwasher or as a chauffeur for executives, whatever it takes to earn enough.
He said he sends about $200 a week to his wife and mother in Puebla, Mexico. He also learned to paint houses, so if there is no demand for a chauffeur, he can still earn about $150 a day.
He makes about $3,600 a month and the rent on his Queens apartment has gone up, so Huerta said he’s swapped beef for chicken, eats less fruit because prices have skyrocketed and has canceled his cable TV subscription. .
Low-income families in developing countries are estimated to spend around 40% of their income on food, even taking into account government subsidies, said Peter Ceretti, a food security analyst at risk consultancy Eurasia Group.
In Minnesota, Mohamed Aden, a 36-year-old bus driver, said he works nights for Uber to support his wife, children and siblings, who fled from Somalia to Kenya due to violence in their homeland.
His family does not yet have a work permit in Kenya and relies on money he sends home, nearly half of his $2,000 monthly income.
But now he pays more for fuel and food prices are higher in Kenya, so money doesn’t go as far.
Aden tries to visit Kenya every year in December during the cold Minnesota winter.
“This year I can’t, because of inflation,” he explained. “I’m the only one here, feeding the family (…) but I’ll come back when I get the money.”
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