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Map Monday: Think inflation in SA is bad? You have to see this

Hyper inflation, coupled with the recent drought, has been hard on the pockets of South African consumers, with the price of shopping basics increasing by 23.8% per basket over the last year.

But the local situation pales in comparison to that in Venezuela, which had the world’s worst inflation rate, at just under 122% last year. It’s projected to be at over 3 900% in 2020.

The International Monetary Fund calculated South Africa’s hyper inflation at 6.48% for this year, projecting it would fall to 5.6% in 2020.

Coupled with an unemployment rate of over 20%, things don’t look good at all for Venezuela. The map below, by howmuch.net, illustrates the size of each country in the world, according to its individual unemployment and inflation rate.

The bigger the country, the faster its currency depreciates.

2-final-inflation-gif-3220

“This year, Venezuela’s already world-beating inflation rate is expected to quadruple to 482%. As it gets worse every year, the only consolation is that the rate at which the inflation increases is at least slowing down,” howmuch.net said.

“From this year to the next, inflation is slated to grow by a factor 3.5 to 1.643%. From 2017 to 2018, the multiplication rate should be about 1.75, to 2.881%. Inflation could be as bad as 3.497% in 2019, 1.2 times as much as the previous year and 3.960% in 2020, only 1.1 times as bad as in 2019.”

“Venezuela’s red colour suggests a link between rampant inflation and high unemployment, but the connection isn’t as straightforward as all that. In 2015, Spain, Greece and South Africa all had more than 20% unemployment, but the first two experienced negative inflation (prices going down). By 2020, only South Africa is projected to have >20% unemployment,” it added.

[Image – CC Wikimedia Commons]

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