00:00And chronic indebtedness hits Uruguayans.
00:03Seven out of ten have debts with the financial system,
00:07and among them, one out of four cannot pay them.
00:10Mateo Grille with the details.
00:14Even though Uruguay has one of the lowest poverty rates in the region,
00:18many families go into debt to meet the high cost of living.
00:21And debts are not just numbers.
00:23They also generate fear, shame, and worry.
00:26A study by academics at the University of the Republic and social activists
00:30concluded that a quarter of Uruguayans have difficulty paying their debts,
00:34and more than half do not even want to talk about it.
00:40We wanted to understand a little about the perception in households.
00:47What we saw there is that on the one hand there is a link that in many cases is conflictive
00:50or generates a lot of concern in households.
00:52It is also a topic that is difficult for people to talk about,
00:56In other words, it is not an easy topic for people to discuss.
01:03Debt is a pressing problem for Uruguayan society.
01:08According to the central bank,
01:09almost 70% of the population has debts with the financial system,
01:14and 40% of them were in a situation of non-payment.
01:17Of these, some are able to access formal credit, but others are left behind,
01:22and fall prey to very high interest rates.
01:24The market has an important segmentation in terms of credits that have in some way a backing.
01:32While low incomes or get into a cycle of borrowing from many institutions,
01:36and then are more likely to be denied credit in so many institutions.
01:39Because workers are formal workers and have, for example,
01:42pay stubs to back up the credit, or have higher incomes,
01:44they can access a certain quality of credit in terms of the interest rates they pay.
01:48These are much better than people who have no way of backing up that income,
01:52or have very low incomes, or get into a cycle of borrowing from many institutions,
01:56and then are more likely to be denied credit in so many institutions.
01:58The study reveals that 6 out of 10 Uruguayans borrow money frequently,
02:1125% spend it on current expenses, and 30% on paying off other debts.
02:17In addition, almost 70% consider debt a taboo subject,
02:21and more than half find it difficult to talk about it.
02:23I lived it with my parents, it was collect and pay, collect and pay.
02:29My mother had credit cards everywhere, she took out money here,
02:32and they're plugging holes like the goalkeepers.
02:39Chronic indebtedness does not come out of the blue,
02:42and has been aggravated by years of submerged wages,
02:45and a cost of living that is increasingly difficult to meet.
02:47This is in relation to what people earn.
02:54If here you earn a certain amount with a minimum wage and pensions do not increase,
02:58what you buy is noticeable.
03:00The relationship is not so much whether prices are expensive,
03:03but how much people earn to be able to access basic necessities.
03:06Getting into debt is the routine of thousands of Uruguayan households in order to survive,
03:18and at the same time reflects a profound economic injustice.
03:22The silence and shame surrounding it not only make it difficult to break the cycle of indebtedness,
03:27but also end up blaming the victims of inequality themselves.
03:30Mateo Grise, TVS.
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