Although Pereira considered it positive that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), that is, national wealth, improves, in any case “people do not feel that this is reaching their homes”, and when this happens, the Broad Front is in need to make alternative proposals to those made by the government.
For this reason, a group of technicians and political leaders from the Front will meet to analyze a set of proposals to society, and if necessary to the government, to take measures that reach the majority of Uruguayans, and “balance what is happening when a sector of the economy grows substantially due to the influence of very high international prices and an international market that favors them, but, on the other hand, a sector of the population of society is having a very bad time”.
“We are going to be analyzing a set of proposals as the Broad Front has always done, to try to improve the quality of life of Uruguayans,” he said.
Purchasing power
The president of the FA expressed, in statements to the press, that there is a central concern of all Uruguayans, which is purchasing power, that is, “what happens with prices when people go to the store, to the vegetable stand, to the supermarket, to the fair and they see that they can no longer buy the same with what they earn, for which there is a deterioration in the purchasing power of households”
In this sense, Pereira stated that this situation deteriorates the social fabric.
He questioned that the government announces in April a 2% increase for public workers and 3% for retirees and pensioners, but to grant them only in August. People are suffering now in April, May, June and July.
He exemplified that for a salary of 30 thousand pesos, the government’s proposal supposes an increase of 600 nominal pesos for five months, which will then be deducted from the future salary adjustment. “This is very little for any household.”
“Purchasing power, especially in the products of the basic food basket, has been affected and it is the most affected sectors of society, such as those who do not have a job or those who have informal jobs, who are in context critical sociocultural, those who do not see policies to favor their situation”, questioned the president of the Front.
Popular pots and medicines
Pereira lamented that there are still 100,000 Uruguayans who continue to eat in soup kitchens, which is “one of the worst news that a country as small as ours can have.”
On the other hand, the president of the FA expressed his deep concern about the “lack of medicines in hospitals and the reports of shortages in the educational system.”
