WHAT ARE THE PRODUCTS OF THE FAMILY BASKET? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

The products of the family basket are those essential goods and services so that an individual and his family nucleus can satisfy their basic needs based on their economic income. In other words, the products of the basic basket are those that are needed to have a healthy subsistence both mentally and physically.

The concept of the family basket or "basicbasket" was born in the early 1900s, and is attributed to the British industrialist sociologist Seebohm Rowntree who studied the precise group of foods that people's bodies require to function.

All this with the aim of solving the problem of the shortage that the workers of the city of York were experiencing at the time.

Over time, other factors were added to the concept of the family basket, and this began to be used to measure how much a person had to spend in order to meet their primary needs and develop their human potential.

In this way, products such as: oil, bottled water, rice, tuna, sugar, meat, roasted coffee, soluble coffee, beer, chocolate, electricity, domestic gas, telephone service, detergents, soaps, medicines, began to be included. toothpaste, soda, oil, etc.

In several countries, the family basket is used to calculate inflation, by adding the total cost of all the products that compose it and comparing it with the average income and expenses of families.

The family basket focuses on the average urban consumer. For this reason, rural populations, those families living in poverty or those who exceed the average economic income in a country, are measured in another way since their consumption habits are different.

Definition of family basket

On some occasions, the family basket is referred to as the basic family basket, using the term "basic" to refer to the limited amount of food that must be included in the basket to satisfy human nutritional needs.

Foods are chosen and measured based on the calorie and protein intake necessary for a family of four (mother, father, and two children) to live.

It is important to point out that the family basket is the minimum amount of food, consumer goods and services that a family requires in order not to consider themselves in a condition of poverty. However, the diet of a person who follows outside the family basket can sometimes be more nutritious than what is included in it.

When the family basket fails to offer enough nutrients to people, the government must reevaluate the list of elements and add those that are necessary to complete it.

In countries such as Mexico, the family basket is made up of 80 items, while in Venezuela, the products of the family basket amount to 400 items, which include food and services.

In the United States, on the other hand, the family basket can include all kinds of basic foods necessary for an adult between 30 and 59 years old to be well nourished. These foods include milk, eggs, rice, corn, cheese, coffee, cereal, oil, butter, and meat.

Product groups included in the family basket

The products of the family basket are made up of multiple elements that vary in each country. However, regardless of the country of origin, they can be classified into the following categories:

• Food and non-alcoholic beverages
• Alcohol and tobacco
• Restaurants and hotels
• Dress and footwear
• Rental housing
• Housing services
• Furniture, home furnishings
• Health
• Transport
• Communications
• Recreation and culture
• Personal care
• Educational services
• Financial services
• Others

Taking into account these categories, it is easy to identify each month how much the value of products and services increases and if inflation remains stable.

These categories are also used to obtain information about consumers, taking into account the variety of prices and the quality of different products, as well as their availability for purchase.

How to calculate the family basket?

The calculation of the products that must be included in the family basket is made based on the information collected by the central bank of each country.

This is in charge of indicating which products should be considered basic for a family to live with what is necessary, taking into account the price of these products and the minimum income that each inhabitant of the country must receive by law.

Also, the amount of calories that a person must consume per day and the price of the products that provide them must be taken into account.

In this way, the number of products must be multiplied taking into account the number of calories necessary to maintain a healthy diet. The sum of all the products should yield the daily cost of the family basket.

When a person or family is not able to purchase all the products listed in the family basket, they are considered to be in poverty. In this way, the statistics that speak about the consumption of the family basket can be compared by the government with the number of inhabitants of the country to measure its poverty index.

In general, the family basket can vary each year and new products can be added and others can be removed from the list that composes it. All this depends on inflation, that is, on the increase in the value of the goods and services included in the basket in proportion to the country's average income.

It must be taken into consideration that the items in the family basket are defined in such a way that they can be comparable to each other over the years.

For this reason, the basket includes the same goods and services each year. Consumers are free to consume products other than those found in the basket, which can affect their annual composition.

References

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4. Hahn, F. (1981). Inflation. In F. Hahn, Money and Inflation (p. 71). Cambridge: MIT Press.
5. (2017). Investopedia. Obtained from Basket Of Goods: investopedia.com
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