Unlike last month where there were some delays in issuing inflation data, ZIMSTAT has been timely this time around. According to the government agency, month on month inflation for May fell down by 2.51% to 15.13%. Also the annual inflation rate change stood at 785.55% in May. This all means despite the apparent slow down, prices are still increasing faster than people’s wages are going up.

The #CPI for the month ending May 2020 stood at 1,097.65 compared to 953.36 in April 2020 and 123.95 in May 2019

The food poverty line

ZIMSTAT also helpfully provided the Food Poverty Line for the same month. FPL refers to the total amount required to satisfy and individual or given group of individual’s basic food needs. Total consumption line means the total amount that an individual requires/required to purchase both non-food and food items.

The Food Poverty Line #FPL for one person in April 2020 was $596.96 while that for an average household of five persons was $2,984.78 ZWL.
The Total Consumption Poverty Line #TCPL for one person during the same period (April 2020) was $1,485.16 while that for an average of five persons per household stood at $7,425.81

In other words if you earned less than $7 500 in May you had to forego some basics.

Click here to see Zimbabwe’s Annual Inflation from August 2018 to Present