IPAM: Older adults are the ones who suffer the most from price increases in Chile

The Price Index for Older Adults (IPAM) shows that, while the CPI accumulated in the last 12 months was 13.7%, for older adults the increase in the cost of living is 1.2% higher, reaching 14.9% inflation.

The country is currently experiencing a critical moment in terms of inflation. The cost of living has risen significantly, with figures that I did not see more than 30 years ago. And despite the fact that it is a phenomenon that plagues all Chileans, there is a group that is being affected to a greater extent: the elderly.

With this premise, the Public Policy Center of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the San Sebastian University since August it has been preparing the Price Index for the Elderly (IPAM). In his second installment, he reflected that in September the consumption basket during the last 12 months increased by 14.9% for households where the head of household is a person over 65 yearsthis figure being 1.2% higher than the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

For Karol Fernández, one of the researchers who carried out the index, “the public policies of the future must have people at the center. Given the growth of the elderly population in our country, we wanted to look at how the phenomenon of inflation, which is affecting the entire population, is specifically impacting this group. The IPAM emerges as a tool that allows us to better reflect the reality that this group of the population is facing.”

How is the IPAM calculated?

To arrive at this number, The report is based on data from the latest Family Budget Survey published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), from where consumption is identified in households where the head is an older adult. From there, following the methodology used for the CPI, the index is structured that allows monitoring the price variation of that basket.

When carrying out this data crossing, the report indicates that, of the 12 subcategories of products and services analysed, there are ten that present a greater increase in the IPAM than that reflected in the CPI. The areas of Recreation and Culture (24.4%), Transportation (22.9%) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (22.3%) were the ones that had the greatest increases in the last 12 months for older adults. Meanwhile, Clothing and Footwear (1.1%) together with Health (5.5%), are the divisions with the lowest increases in September.

Felipe Bettancourt, another of the authors of this index, indicates that IPAM can become a very useful tool for those who design public policiesespecially, in a topic of such relevance today as is the way in which Chileans reach old age.

“Given the growth of the elderly population in Chile, we wanted to look at how the phenomenon of inflation is affecting them. That is why we created the IPAM, a useful tool especially for times when the inflation of households headed by older adults is above the CPI. An example of its usefulness, pointed out in the report, has to do with the Universal Guaranteed Pension, which today considers a readjustment system based on the CPI, when a better approximation to correct its value over time could be based on the IPAM”, Bettancourt said.

check the report complete.