INDEC: Poverty 27.3% in the first half of 2018

Poverty

rose to 27.3 percent on the first half of the year, representing a 1.6-percent increase on the latter half of 2017, INDEC said this week The new figure is a 1.3-percent drop, however, year-on-year compared to the first six months of 2017.

The ‘destitution’ index that registers those living in extreme poverty reached 4.9 percent, a thin 0.1-percent increase compared to December 2017 and a 1.3-percent drop compared to the first six months of last year.

The figures mean that 501,354 more people are now under the poverty line, while 34,206 more people have slipped into extreme poverty so far this year. According to INDEC’s data, there are now 12.2 million people who are considered poor in Argentina, with 2.1 million people considered to be living in extreme poverty.

Experts believe those numbers are likely to worsen, however, given Argentina’s recent economic turmoil, which has prompted government officials to warn the recession may be long and painful.

Inflation is expected to hit 40 percent by the end of the year while the economy is predicted to shrink by two percent.

According to the statistics, the largest numbers of poor people are concentrated in the Greater Buenos Aires area, with 3,843,746 people living below the poverty line. The city of La Banda, in Santiago del Estero, is the place with the highest poverty index in the country.

Reacting to the figures, President Mauricio Macri said he acknowledged the hikes poverty and destitution, anticipating those figures will worsen in the near future.

“We were expecting this news after some turbulent months. It’s not an easy piece of news,” he said. “Poverty doesn’t go away by not measuring it. We’ll always tell the truth. We know that in the future, with the same sincerity, we’ll show that we are moving ahead.”

Macri started his presidency with poverty standing at 32.2 percent in thesecondquarterof2016,afteryearsofunreliabledatafromtheINDEC. It fell to 30.3 percent in the second half of 2016. The decline continued in 2017 with 28.6 percent (first half) and 25.7 percent (second half).