Academic needs four months’ wages to repair shoes

As a microcosm of Venezuela’s economic woes, university professor Jose Ibarra shared his financial predicament on social media – his tweet claiming that it would take four months of his salary to afford to fix his shoes, write Cristina Abellan Matamoros, Natalia Oelsner and Marta Rodriguez for Euronews.

The tweet quickly went viral. It showed a picture of the professor’s shoes and read: “I’m not embarrassed to say it: it’s with these shoes that I go to the Central University of Venezuela every day to teach. My salary as a university professor is not enough to change the sole of my shoes.” His tweet has had more than 9,000 retweets and more than 5,000 likes at the time of writing.

In a country where the International Monetary Fund projects an inflation of 1,000,000%, a cobbler told the professor he would need 20 million bolivares to get new soles. His monthly salary is 5.9 million bolivares – the equivalent of €1.45 (US$1.70). By sharing the picture of his old shoes, Ibarra was hoping to show the rest of the world how a university professor lives in Venezuela today.
Full report on the Euronews site