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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
Statistics from the General Labor Federation of Lebanon
(Confédération Générale des Travailleurs du Liban) showed that for
the first three months of 1985, there was a cost of living increase
of 30 percent. The statistical directorate at the prime minister's
office, however, put the increased cost for a single person living
at subsistence level at 100 percent over the same period. The
federation's statistics showed an 86- percent inflation rate in the
12 months ending June 1986, with food prices showing the highest
increases. At the end of 1986, the federation estimated that during
the first 10 months of 1986, the cost of living for a family of 5
had risen by 150 percent. Monthly expenditure on basic
items--excluding education, rent, and medical expenses--had risen
from L£5,652 to L£14,083. Overall, the federation estimated that
1986 had witnessed a 226-percent increase in prices. By March 1987,
the federation was reporting a 250-percent inflation rate, with
food prices having increased 300 percent over the previous 12
months.
Periodically, the government ordered wage increases, such as
the 25- percent increase for all state employees enacted on January
1, 1986, but the increases did not keep up with inflation. In the
anarchic circumstances of Lebanon, no amount of governmental action
could resolve the underlying problem of inflation.
Data as of December 1987
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