Argentina’s poverty rises to 32 percent under Milei with more pain forecast

Argentina’s poverty rate has risen, hitting 32.3 percent in the first half of 2026 under President Javier Milei, partly erasing the country’s earlier gains.

According to figures released by the national statistics agency INDEC on Thursday, the poverty rate rose 4.1 percentage points between January and June compared with the last half of 2025, moving from 28.2 to 32.3 percent.

Extreme poverty — where households cannot afford basic food needs — also rose from 6.3 to 7.5 percent.

More Argentinians found themselves out of work in the second quarter after unemployment rose to 7.9 percent, the country’s highest level since 2021. For many who remain employed, their wages have struggled to keep up with the rising cost of basic goods and services.

Household income per person rose 11.5 percent in the first six months of the year, but the cost of necessities used to calculate the poverty line rose nearly 20 percent, according to INDEC.

Estimates from the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA), widely seen as an early indicator of official poverty trends, suggest the poverty rate could rise to 35 percent by the end of the year.

The news comes after Milei, elected in 2023, repeatedly touted declining poverty as evidence that his free-market economic overhaul was bearing fruit.

Poverty surged to nearly 53 percent in the first half of 2024 after his government’s devaluation of the peso and sweeping spending cuts sharply reduced purchasing power. But the rate then fell rapidly as Milei’s austerity drive eased inflation, reaching 28.2 percent in the second half of 2025, the lowest level since early 2018.