CARACAS: Venezuela's minimum monthly salary is 15,051 bolivares, which a government subsidy for all workers bumps up to nearly 18,600 bolivares. But no matter how you cut it, it's barely enough to live on.
Under the strongest official exchange rate given by the government -- where 10 bolivars equals $1 -- that would theoretically be equivalent to $1,500. Except that rate is reserved for importing basics like essential food and medicine.
There is another, floating rate called the DICOM, which applies to purchases by international credit cards, for instance. That fetches 452.08 bolivares.
But for ordinary Venezuelans who neither import food nor carry around a foreign credit card, the rate they face on the streets is far, far worse.
It's 1,000 bolivares to $1, and that's a costly exchange that's applied to just about anything that is imported or requires imported ingredients. Which means most goods in Venezuela, which has long relied on its oil wealth to bring in what it needs.
Under that rate, a minimum-wage earner is bringing back just under $20 per month.
Even for Venezuelans pocketing more than that, the hyperinflation hitting their bolivares makes conditions unthinkably expensive.
That means the middle class, most of it sliding into poverty, sees anything but food purchases as a luxury.
"Everybody is knocked low," Michael Leal, a 34-year-old manager of an eyewear store in Caracas, told AFP. "We can't breathe."
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