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HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Yearly inflation soared to an all-time high of 782 percent in Zimbabwe, the former breadbasket of southern Africa whose economy collapsed from years of drought and the government-backed seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms.
Prices rose 27.5 percent during the month of February alone, and the average family of five needed about $90 just to meet basic food needs, far above average earnings, state radio said Saturday.
Trade unions say those still formally employed — about 20 percent of the work force — earn about $55 a month. Workers on formerly white-owned commercial farms, by contrast, earn as little as $3 a month from their employers, many of them beneficiaries of President Robert Mugabe's "fast track" land redistribution.
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