Poverty and indigence experienced a drastic increase in the first half of the year in Argentina, reaching 52.9% and 18.1% of the population, respectively, as reported this Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec). . These data reflect a deterioration compared to the 2023 indices.

The shortage increased from 40.1% of the population in the first half of 2023 to 52.9% in the same period this year, which represents an increase of 30% in the number of people in this situation. Regarding homelessness, the increase is even more significant: it went from 9.3% in the first half of 2023 to 18.1%, which implies that the percentage of homeless people almost doubled.

In Argentina, in 2024, almost 20% of the population does not have sufficient resources to feed themselves adequately. This situation represents a social setback compared to the second half of last year, when poverty stood at 41.7% and indigence at 11.9%.

The spokesman for the president of Argentina, Manuel Adorni, defended himself by stating that, if Javier Milei had not won the elections, poverty would reach 95%, an assertion that is unfounded. In addition, he maintained that “the best way to combat poverty is to fight inflation.”

In 2002, after the exit from convertibility, poverty exceeded 65%, while between 2011 and 2015, estimates indicate that the rate ranged between 25% and below 30%.

24.8 million people in poverty

According to the forecasts of the Cifra Center, linked to the CTA, if the rates of the Permanent Household Survey (EPH) of Indec are projected, there are approximately 24.8 million people in poverty at the national level, which represents a increase of more than 5 million compared to the previous semester. In addition, it is estimated that 6.8 million people are in a situation of destitution, which represents an increase of 2.8 million compared to the previous semester.

The disaggregation by age reveals a bleak panorama in childhood: at the national level, 66% of children and adolescents (NNyA) are in poverty. Between 2019 and 2023, poverty in this group had ranged between 52% and 58%. Regarding indigence, the percentage of children and adolescents is 27%.

Another relevant fact is that not only has poverty increased, but, on average, the poor are poorer than before. This is reflected in the gap, which measures the distance between the average income of households in poverty and the poverty line established by Indec. In the first semester, the average income was 42% lower than this line, which is closely related to the increase in food inflation during the summer, after the megadevaluation implemented by Milei and Luis Caputo.

In the six urban agglomerations located totally or partially in the Province of Buenos Aires, the poverty rate increased from 44.9% in the second half of 2023 to 58.7% in the first half of 2024, which represents an increase of 13.3 points. For its part, in the average of the agglomerations of the rest of the country, the poverty rate rose from 38.3% to 47.4%, that is, nine points more.

While in the second half of 2023 the poverty rate was 6.5 points higher in the urban agglomerations of the Province of Buenos Aires, in the first half of 2024 that difference widened to 10.8 points. This reflects how the province, and in particular the Conurbano, − which experienced an increase of 14.2 points in poverty, reaching 59.7% −, is being especially impacted by politics.

“Alarming, but predictable”

“This increase in poverty and indigence is alarming, but predictable according to the indicators that we have observed in recent months, such as the fall in salaries, especially in the public sector, retirements and social programs, particularly promoting work “explains Mariana González, economist at the CIFRA-CTA Center.

In response to Adorni’s statements about the role of inflation in poverty, González clarifies that the key does not lie solely in inflation, but in the increase in income in real terms, something for which currently “there are no conditions for a recovery sustained over time”.

“The policies that support this lower inflation compared to the summer peak cannot be considered permanent, since they are based, on the one hand, on the appreciation of the real exchange rate, which puts long-term external accounts at risk. and, on the other hand, in a deep recession that impacts employment and income. This situation is different from what was observed at the end of the previous government, when high inflation was a direct cause of the deterioration of social conditions,” duck.

Hernán Letcher: “The aim is to reduce the income of the lower-income sectors for the benefit of those with higher incomes”

Hernán Letcher, from the Center for Argentine Political Economy (CEPA), points out that “this data is the most illustrative of Milei’s model. His policy promotes income transfer mechanisms from active and passive workers to the concentrated sectors of capital, in addition to having a clearly regressive logic, since it repeatedly seeks to reduce the income of the lower-income sectors to the benefit of those with higher incomes.

“Government failure”

“The increase of 11 points in poverty reflects the failure of the Government in terms of economic and social results. The poverty figures show the social and productive urgency that Argentina faces. This cruelty has a theoretical basis: as the president, no one is dying of hunger, people make ends meet, and everything is resolved by decisions that can be found in microeconomics manuals,” says Martín Burgos, economist at the Cultural Center of Cooperation.

“The most worrying thing is that numerous economists, both orthodox and heterodox, consider that the situation can only get worse, since this model does not generate foreign currency, lacks reserves, and the increase in dollar deposits from laundering cannot be used. Everything seems indicate that a devaluation will occur, which will further aggravate the social panorama,” adds Burgos.