Argentina’s Poverty Rate Surges Under President Milei’s Austerity Program
Boy sits on the sidewalk next to public trash containers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2
Argentine President Javier Milei’s government brought in a severe austerity program after he took office last December. While aiming to tackle a budget deficit and chronic inflation, the radical reforms have hugely impacted ordinary people’s lives in the South American country.Argentina’s poverty rate has surged to 53 percent under the austerity program imposed by the government of self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” president Javier Milei.The figure, published by the national statistics agency INDEC, is up from the 41.7 percent in the second half of 2023.15.7 million people now live in poverty in the country, and around 136,000 jobs have been wiped out since Milei took office.
After taking office as the president of Argentina on December 10, 2023, Milei introduced a series of new measures, including devaluing the peso currency by over 50 percent. He also slashed subsidies for energy and transport and ended limits on exports as part of his “shock therapy" to fix the nation’s economic woes. The reforms sent the country’s hyperinflation-hit economy into free-fall as prices skyrocketed and ordinary consumers struggled to buy basic daily necessities.
Milei has touted ‘wins’ such as monthly inflation dropping to four percent in July, the lowest in two-and-a-half years, and Argentina posting its sixth consecutive monthly fiscal and financial surpluse in June.But those successes have come at a high cost for the population.“The government’s relentless austerity is battering working families and the elderly, deepening the crisis instead of generating solutions,” Victoria Tolosa Paz, a congresswoman for the Peronist bloc, posted on X after the poverty rate data was published.Ahead of the data’s publication, Milei’s spokesperson Manuel Adorni defended the austerity program.He insited that the measures had stopped Argentina from sliding into hyperinflation, adding: “They had left us on the cusp of becoming a country where practically all the residents are poor.”The dismal poverty rate data were accompanied by slumping popularity ratings for Milei. The share of those with a positive view of the president dropped 7 percent between August and September to 40 percent, according to pollster Poliarquía.
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