Venezuela's Hyperinflation Problem In Perspective

At the beginning of this month, Venezuela's opposition-dominated National Assembly released a report showing that the country's annual inflation rate increased to a mind-blowing 13,779 percent over the past year. That corresponds with a projection made by the International Monetary Fund and visualized on the following infographic which shows that Venezuela's annual inflation rate will be more than 13,800 percent this year. Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, has an even higher estimate. He claims that inflation rose by 16,000 percent over the past 12 months.

Even though Venezuela is oil rich, it's cash-poor and suffers from severe shortages of food and medicine. The government has not published inflation statistics since 2015 and critics have claimed this is an attempt to conceal the scale of the problem. Venezuela's currency is worthless, a fact that can be clearly seen by the fact that a cup of coffee cost 2,000 bolivares a year ago. Today it would cost 200,000. Using the IMF's projections, the infographic shows how the situation compares to other countries.