Venezuelan Minimum Monthly Wage Not Pegged to the Petro, According to Official Gazette Decree

The new decree that makes official the recently announced Venezuelan minimum monthly wage rise has been revealed in the Official Gazette, with no mention of its supposed peg to the petro, the national cryptocurrency. The law published mentions that the wage will be 130 VES, using the national fiat currency as a unit of account, something that contradicts statements of the Venezuelan president.

Official Gazette Reveals Real Salary Raise for Venezuelans

The recent publication of the Oficial Venezuelan Gazette, a magazine where laws and decrees are published when approved, revealed the truth about the supposed peg that the minimum monthly salary had to the national crypto asset, the petro (PTR), after a recent increase. The decree published establishes this minimum payment in the fiat currency of the country and does not mention the petro anywhere.

The Gazette 6,691, issued on March 15th, includes the decree 4.653, which states:

The mandatory monthly national minimum wage is increased throughout the territory of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, for workers who provide services in the public and private sectors… establishing the amount of one hundred and thirty bolivares (130.00 VES) per month.

This contradicts the statements that the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro made earlier this month when he stated that the minimum wage would be raised to half a Petro, linking the value of this minimum monthly wage to the value of the crypto asset.

Reactions and Explanations

This decree and the lack of a peg between this minimum monthly wage originated reactions in people from the working sectors, who lamented the situation. One of them was the general coordinator of the National Front of the Working Class Struggle, Pedro Eusse, who mentioned this raise had been ”an immense disappointment when discovering that there is no such peg to the petro because that is not reflected in the Official Gazette.”

Eusse further declared:

They promised that they were going to anchor the salary to half a petro, which is an accounting measure that increases with oil prices. What we see now is a salary frozen at $30.

However, Franklin Rondon, representative of the National Assembly, the legislative power entity in the country, declared that, in this case, the petro was just used as a unit of account, and that this doesn’t mean that the minimum wage will be increased every time that this crypto asset rises in value.

What do you think about the decree that increases the minimum monthly wage in Venezuela and the absence of the Petro in it? Tell us in the comments section below.

Sergio Goschenko

Sergio is a cryptocurrency journalist based in Venezuela. He describes himself as late to the game, entering the cryptosphere when the price rise happened during December 2017. Having a computer engineering background, living in Venezuela, and being impacted by the cryptocurrency boom at a social level, he offers a different point of view about crypto success and how it helps the unbanked and underserved.

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