The second vice president and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, pointed out this Friday that part of the rebound in core inflation that has closed 2022 at 7%, is due to the fact that someone “is getting rich”. The head of Labor has made reference to the leader of the Popular Party and has assured that the one who is doing it is not the State, as he has pointed out for months, but rather the companies.
Despite the fact that this data excludes the variation in the prices of energy products and unprocessed food, Díaz has assured that “it is clear that in some sectors, such as food (…) there is someone who is making a profit “, during his speech at the UGT Confederal Days. For this reason, Díaz has insisted that it is not possible to continue admitting that companies “continue increasing their profits at the expense of the wages and effort of the workers.”
Food prices grew by 15.7% in December in the interannual rate, four tenths more than in November and its highest rate since the beginning of the series, in 1994. But, Díaz has highlighted that the December CPI of 5.7 % of GDP represents the lowest inflation in Europe, “thanks to all the efforts to reduce the big problems” in the economy. In this sense, he recalled that the Executive has regulated energy prices, despite the fact that it was said “that it could not be done.”
“We are in a crisis and it depends on who contributes, that the crisis does not come out at the expense of those who have less, it has to come out from above. It cannot be admitted, and it is being shown, that a part of the underlying inflation is explained only for this, for the benefits of the companies and, as a country, it cannot continue to happen”, he remarked. The Minister of Labor has warned that the devaluation of wages persists while corporate profits increase, which she calls “an economic mistake.”
The CPI rises two tenths in December
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose two tenths in December in relation to the previous month and cut its interannual rate by 1.1 points, to 5.7%, its lowest figure since November 2021, according to the data The final figures published this Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), which reduce by one tenth those advanced by the agency at the end of last month, when it pointed to a year-on-year CPI of 5.8% and a monthly rise in prices of 0 ,3%.
This has not been the case in the case of underlying inflation (excluding unprocessed food and energy products), where the INE has raised its initial estimate of 6.9% by one tenth. Thus, the core CPI finally closed December at 7%, a rate seven tenths higher than that of November and the highest since November 1992. With this data, core inflation exceeds the general index for the first time since February 2021 and opens with a gap of 1.3 points.
