Why do official wages keep increasing?
According to Belstat, the real Belarusian wages have increased by 6%. However, if you look into it, you can see that they have decreased by 23%...
Euroradio has looked into politicians’ tricks.
Belstat notes almost every month that the population’s income keeps increasing regardless of the inflation!
“The real wages increased by 5.9% in January-October 2011 in comparison with January-October 2010”, - says October press release.
Even C-students know that the real wages should be calculated with the deduction of the price growth.
The inflation in Belarus has totaled 204% since December! Have our wages increased even more?! They haven’t. The wages have only increased by 1.5 times this year.
So what is the dirty trick?
Economist Leanid Zlotnikau thinks that Belstat has not made any mistakes in its calculation. However, you can calculate it in different ways. The thing is Belstat compares wages for a period of time. The real average wage in January-October 2011 is bigger than last year…
Leanid Zlotnikau: “But people do not need this comparison… They need the dynamics”.
Indeed, if you compare October and December you will find out that the real wage has decreased by 23%! [see the table].
Leanid Zlotnikau: "People think: there was much and now there is less and I can buy less… They compare months, not periods”.
If you compare October and December wages you will see that you can buy less. The purchasing capacity is the real wage, says the economist.
Belstat says that it uses two methods of calculation. It assures that every method “has the right to exist”.
Belstat: “We present all the information! Every index has the right to exist and all of them are used for certain purposes. It may be better to compare months in some methods… However, there are different methods. We all go on vacations and our wages are much bigger in this case. However, the next wage will be lower. In other words, the average wage calculated for periods of time allows taking the fluctuations into account…”
Belstat will publish its official November press release tomorrow… We will see whether our wages have increased or decreased. And whether the official information corresponds to the way Belarusians feel.
