BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina’s poverty rate rose from 41.7% to 52.9% during the first six months of Javier Milei’s presidency, the statistics agency said Thursday. A rise reflects the pain of the country’s most intense austerity program in recent times. memory.
The government’s finding that an additional 5.2 million people have been pushed into poverty during Milei’s short term so far marks a setback for the far-right economist, even as foreign investors and the International Monetary Fund – to which Argentina has donated 43 billion dollar owes – applaud his fiscal shock therapy.
Bracing for negative news hours before the poverty report’s release, Milei’s spokesman tried to deflect the blow during a lengthy press conference.
“The government has inherited a disastrous situation,” Manuel Adorni told reporters, denouncing decades of rampant spending under Milei’s left-wing Peronist predecessors. “They left us standing on the brink of a country where virtually all of its inhabitants are poor.”
Inflation, now running at over 230% annually – among the worst in the world – played a key role in pushing the country’s poverty rate over six months to its highest level since the 2003 financial crisis.
Unlike previous governments that kept consumer spending high at the expense of a huge budget deficit that shamed the country as it defaulted on its debts, Milei dismantled price controls, cut subsidies on energy and transportation and devalued the peso by 54% after taking office. . Austerity measures and deregulation have led to a brutal reduction in purchasing power and dragged the economy deep into recession.
