(from Santiago, Chile) Climbing the social pyramid is the dream of many and the achievement of few. And in Latin America, the requirement to be considered a member of the upper class varies considerably from country to country. It is not the same to be high class in Chile as it is in Argentina, Mexico or Venezuela. he The cost of living and inflationAmong other things, play an important role in determining whether someone belongs to this segment or not.
And according to a report by the Colombian newspaper La República, Based on economic indicators of each country, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the country where you need to generate a larger amount of income to be considered upper class is Chile. On the other hand, the lowest country on the list is Brazil.
According to the Colombian media, b A monthly income of US$5,864 (CLP$5,041,088) is required to be considered top class, followed by Venezuela with $5,560 (CLP $4,799,392) and Mexico with $4,266 (CLP $3,682,411). Peru requires US$3,418 (CLP$2,950,417) and Argentina requires US$3,325 (CLP$2,870,140).
Those who require the least are the residents of Uruguay, with a monthly income of the order of $1,550 (CLP $1,337,960), of Ecuador with $1,500 (CLP $1,294,800) and of Colombia with $1,020 (CLP $880,464). Brazil stands out as the country where people must earn the lowest amount per month to be considered top class, with a figure of $860 (CLP $742,352).
There are no data for Bolivia, Paraguay and Central America.
But what are the reasons why the figure varies so much from country to country? The main explanation points to a difference in the cost of living. As an example, the cost of living is 40% lower in Montevideo than in Santiago, Chile. Something similar happens with Colombia, where the cost of living is about 50% lower than in Chile.
The Dean of the Faculty of Economic Sciences and the Director at Yoninfo, Michael Ortegon, explained to the Colombian media that The cost of living in Chile stems from factors such as the price of housing, education and public services.. Furthermore, since there is a “Unequal Income Distribution”indicates that the Gini coefficient in Colombia is higher than in Chile, with 0.52 versus 0.49 respectively.
The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality Invented by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini. It is usually used to measure income inequality within a country, but it can be used to measure any form of unequal distribution.
The countries where a higher percentage of their population is eligible to be considered high class are Uruguay with 6%, Brazil and Argentina with 5% and Venezuela with 3.7%.
On the other hand, the countries with the lowest percentage of people considered to be of high status were Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile, with 1%, 1.2%, 1.7% and 1.8% respectively.
Additional data provided by the CAF is that 10% of the population in Latin America concentrates 55% of the region’s income.
According to the Supplementary Income Survey (ESI) 2022 of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), The average labor income of Chileans was $757,752 ($870) net monthly income, while the median income, received by half of the population, reached $502,604 (AUD $576) per month.
These data reveal that 50% of workers in Chile received an income equal to or lower than this last amount.
Data broken down by gender noted that in 2022, men’s mean and median earnings were $850,412 (USD975) and $572,968 (USD657), respectively, while those for women were $633,334 (USD726) and $454,723 (USD521). This gap represented a gap of -25.5% in the median income in favor of men.
For occupational categories, employers had an average monthly income of $1,548,365, while public and private sector employees and self-employed workers received $993,916, $798,926 and $440,396, respectively.
