Rodrigo Chaves, President of the Republic. (File/CRH).
(Then24.com).-The positive views on economic management of the president Rodrigo Chavez decreased while negative perceptions increased.
This was determined by the I Consumer Survey 2023 (ICC) of the Statistics School and the Statistical Services Unit (USES) of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), whose results were released this Wednesday.
According to the investigation, for the first time since the Chaves administration began, there is a tie between the positive and negative opinions of the social and economic policies that this government has implemented.
While four months ago the 31% of the sample considered as “good” the administration of the President in economic and social matters, this percentage was reduced to 29.0% (-2 points) in February of this year.
Instead, those who disapprove of them or consider them “poor” rose from 28.3%last November, at 29.1% (increase of 0.8 points).
“This is a very significant result, taking into account that in August of last year the positive perceptions of the Government’s economic policies were 11 percentage points above the negative ones”, is explained in the study.
The research also revealed that the number of consumers who expect a increase in poverty for the next year it went from 41.2%, in the previous November, to 44.8%, in February 2023.
A similar thing happened with respect to the percentage of interviewees who think that the price will rise. unemployment: this group went from 31.8% in November to 34.5% in February.
other measurements
Photography for illustrative purposes. (File/CRH).
The ICC survey made two other measurements: a) the Current Economic Conditions Index (ICEA) and b) the Economic Expectations Index (IEE).
The first of them values the trust of consumers in the present economic situation and the second does so as a forecast for the future.
On this occasion, the ICEA increased again. It went from 32.8 points, in November 2022, to 37.1 points, in February of this year (+4.3). At the same time, the IEE rose from 51.4 points, last November, to 54.9 points, in February.
According to the research, the main novelty of these indices is that they present the lowest gap (17.8 points) between the two since the effect of the pandemic began to be registered, in May 2020.
In general terms, the people surveyed who affirm that their current situation is “the same” as that of the previous year add up to 44.2% (increase of 8 points with respect to November), while those who perceive their condition
as “worst” had a significant decrease of 12.4 percentage points and fell to a 32.7%. On the other hand, those who claim to be better than last year make up 22.3% of the sample.
Regarding the recent behavior of the IEE, the percentage of the sample that expects better economic conditions for their family next year rose 6.3 percentage points: they reached 40.4% in February. That same percentage was obtained by those who expect a positive outlook for companies in the next 12 months.
But those who predict an economic crisis situation for the next five years are the 41.7%, while those people with a better hope for that period add up to 31.5%. The percentage that falls within an intermediate expectation reached 19.7%.
In total, they interviewed 717 seniors 18 years of age throughout the national territory and with a cell phone. The survey was conducted between February 2 and 15 of this year. The sampling error is at ±1.8 points for the ICC and in ±3.7 points for percentages, with a confidence level of 95%.
