Argentina poverty rate rises to 32.3%

Argentina's poverty rate rose to 32.3 percent in the first half of 2026, up 4.1 percentage points from the previous half-year, the national statistics agency Indec said Thursday.

Extreme poverty also increased, rising from 6.3 percent to 7.5 percent. Children were hit hardest: 44.5 percent of Argentines aged 14 or younger were classified as poor, and 10.8 percent as extremely poor.

Indec classifies adults as poor if they cannot afford a basic basket of goods and services valued at about $340. It classifies people as extremely poor if they cannot afford a food-only basket worth about $150.

The figures reverse part of the decline recorded under President Javier Milei. The poverty rate reached 52.9 percent in the first half of 2024 after a peso devaluation of more than 50 percent, then fell to 28.2 percent in the second half of 2025.

This year's increase coincided with a rebound in inflation at the start of the year before inflation slowed to 1.7 percent in August, the lowest level in 14 months.

Eduardo Donza, a researcher at the Social Debt Observatory of the Argentine Catholic University, said job insecurity was a major driver of high poverty. He said families facing deprivation often create informal work, including waste collection, street vending or selling food at train stations.

Manufacturing and retail have lost jobs amid falling purchasing power and wider foreign competition. About 30,000 companies have closed since Milei took office, and unemployment rose to 7.9 percent in the second quarter, its highest level since 2021.

Milei says he has lifted 14 million people out of poverty, an estimate based on the fall from the peak reached after he became president.