Argentina’s poverty rate soars above 50 percent under ‘anarcho-capitalist’ Milei

NEWS WIRES

26 September 2024 at 4:52 pm·1-min read

Poverty in Argentina soared to almost 53 percent in the first half of 2024, the national statistics bureau reported on Thursday. The figure has risen sharply during the mandate of President Javier Milei, who has introduced a drastic austerity program in a bid to eliminate the country’s budget deficit. The program has cut subsidies to transport and fuel as thousands of civil servants have lost their posts.

Poverty in Argentina rose to over 52 percent of the population in the first six months of self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei’s presidency, according to data released Thursday by the INDEC statistics agency.

The report for the first half of 2024 showed that 52.9 percent of Argentines, or 15.7 million people, now live in poverty and nearly one in five are indigent.

The figure was up from 41.7 percent in the second half of 2023.

Since taking office in December, Milei’s government has applied a drastic austerity program with the aim of eliminating the budget deficit and taming chronic inflation.

It has slashed subsidies for transport, fuel and energy, even as thousands of public servants lost their jobs.

Monthly inflation in Argentina fell to 4.0 percent in July, the lowest in 2.5 years, but the annual figure of 263.4 percent remains one of the highest in the world.

The move, in addition to severe budget cuts, strangled purchasing power.

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