Photo caption, Soup kitchens are a relief for people with problems meeting their needs.Item information
- Author, Editor
- Author’s title, BBC News World
-
September 27, 2024
More than half of Argentines are poor.
This is reflected in the official economic data released this Thursday, September 26, by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec).
The study shows that poverty reached 52.9% in the first half of 2024, which represents an increase of 11 points compared to the second half of 2023 and since Javier Milei assumed power last December.
In this way, the number of poor people in the South American country is around 25 million.
Although experts expected discouraging economic figures, the results continue to surprise since the poverty rate is the highest in the last 20 years (in 2004 it reached 56.8%).
According to Indec data, indigence also increased, reaching 18.1%, which represents a jump of 6.2 points compared to the second half of 2023.
Caption, President Javier Milei has implemented some radical changes in the country’s economy.
The situation is especially problematic in childhood: the data shows that two thirds (66.1%) of children under 14 years of age are part of households below the poverty line.
While the total percentage of poor people for the groups 15 to 29 years old and 30 to 64 years old is 60.7% and 48.6%, respectively. In the population aged 65 and over, the figure reaches 29.7%.
Allow Twitter content?Accept and continue
Warning: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of Twitter content
“Disastrous inheritance”
The data comes after Milei decided to implement some radical changes in the economy of the country with the highest inflation in the world – today close to 240% annually – such as the unprecedented adjustment of public spending.
The president wants to achieve fiscal balance and the so-called “zero deficit”, to guarantee that the State has more income than expenses.
For this reason, according to Milei’s words, the fiscal balance “is not negotiated in any way” because he considers it the only way to lower prices, the most pressing problem for Argentines.
But the measures have been a hard blow for those who cannot even access the basic food basket.
Caption, The number of poor people in Argentina is around 24 million.
Given the new poverty figures, the government blamed its predecessor, the Peronist Alberto Fernández, and the management of the previous 12 years of Kirchnerism in power.
In a press conference held prior to the publication of the economic data, presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni assured that they received “a disastrous inheritance, one of the worst in Argentine history,” a product of the “populist” policies that have been applied in Argentina. the last two decades.
“If hyperinflation was not avoided, poverty would have gone from 40% to around 95% of the population. They left us on the verge of being a country with practically all of its inhabitants poor,” he said.
The spokesperson asked to “end the rhetoric of hypocrites, that when they govern they find a thousand and one excuses not to fulfill what they promise, and when they are in opposition they demand that the government solve the problems that they not only generated but did not solve in the last 16 years.”
Photo caption, The most pressing problem for Argentines is the increase in prices.
Adorni insisted that recovery “is not achieved overnight.”
“A building is destroyed in a second and rebuilding it takes much longer, and that is what has happened in Argentina,” he said.
“No one said that it was a simple process or that the activity or salary would not suffer. They left us with a lot of bombs that we had to deactivate,” he added.
However, the opposition blamed the Milei government and its “adjustment policies.”
“In 6 months, the ‘largest adjustment in history’ impoverished more than 5.3 million Argentinians and led more than 3 million to destitution,” said Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro, senator of the opposition Unión for the Homeland (Peronism), through his X account.
For her part, Cecilia Moreau, deputy of Unión por la Patria, indicated that the economic figures are “purely and exclusively the responsibility of this Government and are the most painful consequence of the adjustment policies that are being implemented on the middle sectors, workers, retired and more vulnerable.
“There has never been an economic plan that, in such a short time, took so much from millions and gave it to so few,” he added.
Caption, The poverty rate in Argentina is the highest in the last 20 years.
And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and activate them.
