Salary is not the only thing that defines the purchasing power of Argentines. A report by the consulting firm Focus Market, released by the portal Ámbito, revealed the deep inequalities in the purchasing power of the provinces by measuring, not in pesos, but in working hours, the time an average employee needs to access mass consumer goods and technology. The study concludes that a worker in Formosa must dedicate 1,162 hours of their working life to buy an iPhone, which is equivalent to almost seven full months of eight-hour workdays.
This figure places Formosa among the provinces with the lowest purchasing power in the country. The ranking of greatest effort is led by La Rioja, where 1,342 hours are required, followed by Chaco with 1,193, and Formosa appears immediately after, forming part of a group of provinces in northern Argentina where access to high-end technological goods demands a colossal effort. At the opposite extreme, a worker in Tierra del Fuego needs only 475 hours, less than half of what a worker in Formosa needs, to purchase the same device.
The gap is not limited to high-end telephony. The survey also analyzed the working time needed to buy a 50-inch Smart TV, a pair of sports shoes and a brand-name jean, and in all cases the pattern repeats: the northern provinces, including Formosa, face greater difficulties because their average salaries are significantly lower in relation to the cost of products. In contrast, Tierra del Fuego, Neuquén and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires show a much higher purchasing capacity.
The director of Focus Market, Damián Di Pace, explained that the methodology seeks to leave aside nominal salary comparisons, which are often distorted by inflation and regional price differences, to focus on the real time a person must work to access the same product. Measuring consumption in working hours, he said, makes it possible to eliminate these variables and offer an indicator much closer to the daily reality of workers.
The report thus provides a stark picture of the structural inequalities that persist in the Argentine labor market. While in some provinces access to technological goods is relatively quick, in Formosa and other northern jurisdictions, the effort required to achieve the same consumer good multiplies, reflecting a gap that nominal wages alone are not enough to show.
