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.

Irma Casal, a 53-year-old in Buenos Aires, works three shifts as a garbage recycler, cardboard collector and bricklayer, but, like many Argentines at a time of rising poverty, she still struggles to make ends meet.