Inflation squeezing migrants twice — at home and abroad
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — In nearly every corner of the globe, people are spending more on food and fuel, rent and transportation.
But inflation isn’t affecting people equally. For migrants with relatives relying on money they send back, higher prices are pinching families twice: at home and abroad.
Migrant workers who send cash to loved ones overseas are often saving less because they’re forced to spend more as prices rise.
For some, the only option is hustling harder, working weekends and nights, taking on second jobs. For others, it means cutting back on once-basic things like meat and fruit so they can send what’s left of their savings to family back home, some of whom are struggling with hunger or conflict.
“I used to save something, about $200 weekly. Now, I can barely save $100 per week. I live by the day,” said Carlos Huerta, a 45-yearold from Mexico working as a driver in New York City.
Across the Atlantic, Lissa Jataas, 49, sends $200 from her desk job in Cyprus to family in the Philippines each month. To save money, she looks for cheaper food at the grocery store and buys clothes from a charity shop. “It’s about being resilient,” she said.
Economies reeling from the shocks of the COVID19 pandemic and effects of climate change were hit again by Russia’s war in Ukraine, which sent food and energy prices soaring.
Those costs plunged 71 million more people worldwide into poverty in the weeks following the February invasion, which cut off critical grain shipments from the Black Sea region, according to the
United Nations Development Program.
When food and fuel prices shoot up, the money people can send to relatives doesn’t go as far as it once did. The International Monetary Fund estimates that global inflation will peak at 9.5% this year, but in developing countries, it’s much higher.
“Poorer people are spending far more of their income on food and energy,” said Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at anti-poverty organization Oxfam.
He said inflation is “pouring fire” on inequality: “It’s almost like poor people are kind of like a sponge that are meant to absorb the economic shock.”
Mahdi Warsama, 52, came to the U.S. from Somalia as a teenager.
An American citizen who works for the nonprofit Somali Parents Autism Network, he sends anywhere from $300 to $3,000 a month to relatives in Somalia, sometimes borrowing money to send what relatives need for medical bills and other emergencies.
Warsama, who splits his time between Columbus, Ohio, and Minneapolis,
estimates he sent $1,500 last month to help his relatives pay for necessities like food and water for themselves and their livestock.
Thousands of people have died in a drought gripping Somalia, with the U.N. saying half a million children are at risk of death due to malnutrition or near famine.
“Just as we have inflation in the United States, in Somalia, it’s even worse,” he said, adding that sacks of rice, sugar and flour that once cost $50 are now $70.
He’s changed his spending habits, is looking for ways to earn more and monitors interest rate hikes and inflation — something he never did before this year.
“I am more determined to work harder and make more money,” Warsama said. “I have to be more mindful, the fact that I have to help my relatives back home.”
In developing countries, it’s estimated that lower-income families spend over 40% of their household earnings on food even with government subsidies, said Peter Ceretti, an analyst tracking food security at risk advisory firm Eurasia Group.