The Shadow Of Economic Weakening And Public Purchasing Power In 2021

Illustration (Angga Nugraha / VOI)

JAKARTA - Saiful Munjani Research and Consulting (SMRC) released the results of a survey regarding economic conditions during the current and next year's COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, more people think that the national economy will be better.

According to former Finance Minister Chatib Basri, this is not necessarily possible. In fact, he said, the real economic problems will arise in early 2021.

Currently, the community's economic condition has indeed weakened. However, now the government is still helping to ease the burden with social assistance policies, credit restructuring, and tax incentives.

"Let's see, after 6 months, the economic condition will reverse or not? Can the money turn over? In their condition that is restructured but they cannot pay their credit at a later stage, that's when the real problem arises," said Chatib in a virtual discussion, Thursday, 25 June.

Then, currently the business world is also making adjustments in the form of streamlining the expense burden and increasing technology-based platforms. As a result, the company employees were laid off (PHK). That way, the people's purchasing power will automatically decrease.

"Public expectations about improving economic conditions next year could change if purchasing power does not increase. Then, companies think why they are trying to make credit to support their business if no one buys their goods," Chatib.

In order to counteract this, of course the government must turn its brains. Likewise, the economic policies taken must be correct.

"The business world will not expand if demand is not boosted. So, the government must have fiscal, not monetary, policy," he continued.

For information, the results of the SMRC survey show that as many as 34 percent of the people think that the national economic conditions will be better. Meanwhile, 27 percent of the people thought the economy would be worse off. Then, as many as 20 percent thought there was no change and 18.6 people answered they did not know.

This survey was conducted in the period 18-20 June 2020 to 1,978 respondents. The survey was conducted by contacting respondents via telephone. These respondents are people who have been surveyed in the previous period. The margin of error in this survey is 2.2 percent with a confidence level of 95 percent.