Not so long ago, Nelly Osorio used to drive a newish car, drink a glass of whiskey every Friday night and get a manicure at least once a month. But today she is waiting outside a pawnbroker’s to sell off her jewelry.

Like many members of Venezuela’s dwindling middle class, Osorio, 60, has seen her life change drastically over the past two or three years.

The country’s minimum wage is 797,510 bolivars a month – about £2.40 at a black market exchange rate. Osorio still owns an apartment in the eastern part of the capital and as a chemical engineer, she earns 10 times the minimum wage. But every day, she feels poorer.

When her youngest son’s university fees were due, neither Osorio nor her husband had enough in their bank accounts. So she headed to the pawn shop to sell off a gold ring.

“It’s humiliating,” she said, as she waited outside.



Once Latin America’s richest country, Venezuela is today facing the world’s worst inflation crisis. The IMF projects inflation will reach 13,000% this year and the economy will shrink 15%.

The impact has been felt across the social spectrum: one recent survey of 6,500 Venezuelan families carried out by the country’s leading universities found that 93% of the respondents had insufficient money to buy food.

The most desperate are forced to pick through rubbish bins to find food, but even those who once might have expected to be cushioned from the crisis are finding it harder to get to the end of the month.

Increasingly, middle-class families are resorting to selling off their belongings to make ends meet.

“They always come with the same story,” says Jonathan Guerra, the manager of a Caracas pawn shop. “They want to pay for something: spare parts for cars, food or collect money to buy a ticket and leave the country “



The store’s display cases are full of silver and gold coins, old banknotes, medals commemorating independence from Spain and other antiques. Desperate to raise cash, customers bring whatever they can find: old photographs, crockery, silver spoons.

“Sometimes, the stuff doesn’t have any kind of value,” says Guerra.



The dismal economy means that many families have given up expenses that once would have been considered essential. According to the same survey, 65% of the population can no longer afford to pay for medical insurance.

“It’s a significant change,” says Henkel García director of Econométrica, a local economic consulting firm. “We now see families living in middle-class apartments, whose spending profile is very similar to a poor family.”



Outside the pawn shop, Ana Artiles pulls out a pair of gold earrings from an envelope. “I’d like to know how much I could get for this,” she says. “I need the money to pay debts and buy food.”

Artiles seems resigned to giving up her jewelry; street crime is now so rampant in Caracas that it’s a risk to wear such items in public. “It’s better to sell them anyway,” she says.

In another pawn shop, Nancy Vielma, 65, hands over a gold chain with a pendant reading “Niña” (“girl” in Spanish) – the pet name her former husband gave her when they started dating.



They have been separated for five years, Vielma said, but pawning off a love token is still painful.

“We are no longer together, but this represents a lot for me, I wouldn’t want to sell it,” she said, adding that she needs the money to pay for her car insurance.

This is the second time she has come to the pawnbroker’s in less than a year. The last time was because her car broke down and needed fixing.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do when I run out of jewelry,” she sighs.

