According to data released on Thursday by the national statistics institute INDEC, Argentina's poverty rate increased from nearly 42 percent to nearly 53 percent in the first six months of President Javier Milei's economic shock therapy.

Poverty in Argentina rose to affect over 52 percent of the population in the first six months of self-declared "anarcho-capitalist" Javier Milei's presidency, according to official data released Thursday.

According to data released on Thursday by the national statistics institute INDEC, Argentina's poverty rate increased from nearly 42% to nearly 53% in the first six months of President Javier Milei's economic shock therapy.

Poverty was already on the rise in Argentina before the Milei government took office. As recently as 2017, only about a quarter of the population were affected. When Milei assumed the presidency, he promised shock therapy, devaluing the peso by 50% and cutting the number of government ministries by half.

Argentina’s poverty rate soared to almost 53% in the first half of the year, official data released on Thursday showed, the first hard evidence of the painful impact of libertarian President Javier Milei’s tough austerity measures.

Argentina's poverty rate rocketed to 52.9% in the first half of 2024, the government's INDEC statistics agency said on Thursday, surging from 40.1% a year earlier.

Argentina’s poverty rate has surged to 52.9 per cent under its government’s austerity programme, in a warning sign for libertarian President Javier Milei as his popularity falters. The rate, published by the national statistics agency on Thursday,

Official report says Argentina's poverty rate has spiked to 53% in first six months of austerity under President Milei

Poverty in Argentina reached its highest level since the aftermath of the 2001 financial crisis in the first half of the year, as President Javier Milei unleashed a shock therapy program to put an already reeling economy back on its feet.

The government's finding that another 5.2 million people had so far slipped into poverty during Milei's short tenure marks a setback for the far-right economist even as foreign investors and the International Monetary Fund — to which Argentina owes $43 billion — cheer his fiscal shock therapy.