Argentina | The number of poor is growing at a record pace – President: The worst is yet to come

Argentinians they get what they ordered, but it's hard to swallow.

The nation is now poorer than in more than 20 years. The new government is disciplining people with all-time spending sprees and warns that the most difficult times are yet to come.

President Javier Milein the message is that you have to do the painful thing, because it makes it easier – but not yet.

He estimates that the punishment will be in March–April.

“When we hit rock bottom, we push ourselves up,” Milei described to El Economista magazine by.

In January below the poverty line, i.e. 57.4 percent of citizens and 15 percent in extreme poverty, told The prestigious research institute of the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) the other week.

The share of the poor had increased by no less than eight percentage points since December. There were already around 27 million of them in January, and it is likely that the number has still increased in February.

Miley accused predecessors, under whom Argentina lived beyond its means.

“The real legacy of the elite model: Six out of ten Argentines are poor. The devastation of the last hundred years has no parallel in Western history,” the president wrote message service in X.

Miley is an economist by background and an anarcho-capitalist by his own definition. He won presidential election in November and took office in December. He campaigned as a big cutter, as a leader of change driven by necessity.

“There is no money,” he is repeated.

The annual inflation of the Argentine peso has risen to as much as 254 percent at the beginning of Mile's season. The prices of things have therefore increased more than 3.5 times in a year.

On the other hand, monthly inflation slowed down from 25.5 percent in December to 20.6 percent in January. In January, Argentina's monthly budget had a surplus for the first time in almost 12 years.

“Brave and decisive”, praised the economic discipline of the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, which has lent Argentina 44 billion dollars.

of La Nación newspaper in the interview Deputy Head of the IMF Gita Gopinath however, urged the government to protect the poorest citizens from the consequences of shock treatment.

But this is what Milei promised.

He abolished state subsidies for public transport and cut fuel subsidies. Thus, the prices of bus tickets have multiplied and the price of gasoline has more than doubled.

The government has cut tens of thousands of jobs in the public sector and halved the number of ministries.

Multi I think Milei has gone too far. In polls, his popularity has started to wane.

Milei tried to reform the Labor Market Act with a wider than usual presidential decree, but at the end of January the court ruled that it was against the constitution.

Milei wants to privatize state-owned companies and reduce regulation, in addition to the labor market, for example in environmental protection and health care.

The ambitious 664-item legislative package concerning these received principle-level approval from the House of Representatives of Congress at the beginning of February, although it was cut by about half. In the end, the representatives unexpectedly managed to reject even these proposals point by point and pissed off the president badly.

Milei returned the entire package for preparation.

“56 percent of Argentines voted for the government's program, and we will not negotiate it with those who destroyed our country,” he hissed.

Presidential the job is made more difficult by the fact that his party has only 38 seats out of 257 in the House of Representatives, seven seats out of 72 in the Senate and no governorships in 24 provinces.

It is known that it was the ignoring of the wishes of the governors that caused the “friendly opposition” in the House of Representatives to revolt.

Angry governors threatened last weekend to cut off oil and gas supplies to the rest of the country as a protest against cutting provincial income transfers.

Galloping due to inflation, Argentina has become accustomed to slow wage increases. The government agreed to 30 percent increases, but the unions demanded 85 percent.

Last week train drivers, medical care, banks and waste management went on strike, this week teachers, among others, went on strike.

“The social conflict continues to grow,” the head of the largest trade union, the CGT Pablo Moyano said according to news agency AFP.

“Unfortunately, this ends badly.”

Multi considers the termination of aid for food aid for the poor to be particularly unfair. The recent information about the explosion of the number of poor people made it seem even more blatant.

An example of a food aid center:

In the first week of February, 20 kilos of pasta was enough for the hungry, but in the second week they had to prepare 30 kilos, volunteers of the Sal de la Tierra soup kitchen told the news agency Reuters in the poor Villa Fiorito district of the capital Buenos Aires.

In a few months, the number of families fed by the same soup kitchen had grown from 20 to 70.

There are similar food aid centers even 44,000. The government has said that it intends to assess their needs and start distributing direct grants to them. In the past, aid has gone through various charities and people's movements. Milei considers such actors as “poverty managers” who drag things out or are at least ineffective.

Volunteer cook Maria Torres disagreed.

“The economic situation of these people is such that if they don't go to the soup kitchen, they don't eat,” he told Reuters.