Argentina’s poverty rate has soared to almost 53% in the first six months of Javier Milei’s presidency, offering the first hard evidence of how the far-right libertarian’s tough austerity measures are hitting the population.
The new poverty rate, reported by the government’s statistics agency on Thursday, is the highest level for two decades, when the country reeled from a catastrophic economic crisis, and means 3.4 million Argentinians have been pushed into poverty this year.
Since taking office in December, the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” – who campaigned with a chainsaw in hand to symbolise the cuts he would make – has slashed public spending in an effort to tame chronic inflation and eliminate the budget deficit.
His administration has frozen pensions, reduced aid to soup kitchens, cut welfare programmes and stopped all public works projects. Tens of thousands of public employees have been fired, reduced energy and transportation subsidies have pushed costs up, and purchasing power has eroded.
Kirsten Sehnbruch, an expert on Latin America at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said she had never seen such a large jump in poverty rates. “This new economic programme is not protecting the poor,” she said. “The jump is absolutely horrendous.”
Milei’s cuts, however, have been cheered by markets, investors and the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina owes $43bn. Monthly inflation has also decreased from about 26% in December to about 4% in June, where it has remained, although annual inflation still remains one of the highest in the world, exceeding 230%.
María Claudia Albornoz, a community worker from Santa Fe, said the government had “provoked a situation of desperation”. “We are feeling it in the fridge, empty and unplugged. Money is really worth absolutely nothing. We have three jobs and it is not enough,” she said.
Also among those affected is 33-year-old Catalina, who works for the ministry of justice and was told last week that she will soon be losing her job.
“Last week 2,500 of us were told that we will be out of a job by the end of this year, except for a handful of ‘lucky ones’ who will be offered to continue working the same hours for half the money,” she said. “I have been looking for another job for months, but there is no work. I don’t know how I’m going to make it. It’s frightening.”
Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said that economic decline was inevitable when controlling inflation, and pointed to similar historic crises in Brazil and Bolivia, but questioned whether Milei’s changes will work.
“It is dangerous territory. The question is, will this belt-tightening have any benefit? What comes next? Can he actually control public sector spending? Can he shore up the currency? Without doing that, you’ve just created poverty,” he said.
While Milei’s popularity ratings have remained high, public support now appears to be waning. A survey published on Monday found a drop of almost 15% in September, the steepest fall during his nine-month administration. Recent polls have found that worries about inflation have been overtaken by fears of job loss and poverty.
“For a county that has historically prided itself on being a middle-class nation, this poverty rate is terribly painful,” Sabatini said.
Milei’s presidential spokesperson said the government had “inherited a disastrous situation” from previous left-leaning governments.
“They left us on the brink of being a country with essentially all of its inhabitants poor,” said Manuel Adorni. “Any level of poverty is horrendous. We are doing everything, everything so that this situation changes.”
