Three Points in Two Quarters: The Poverty Rate in Argentina Is Climbing Again
ARGENTINA · ECONOMY
Key Facts
- —What happened A university count says poverty in Argentina stopped falling and edged up in early 2026.
- —How big Three in ten people in Argentine cities cannot afford a basic basket of food and bills.
- —What it means The steady fall that ran through 2025 has stopped, though the rise so far is small.
- —The catch These are private estimates. The national statistics office has not published any official figure for 2026.
- —Who it hits Families with children, informal workers, and the poorer cities of Concordia and Gran Resistencia.
- —What comes next Argentina’s statistics office publishes its official first-half 2026 poverty report on 24 September.
The poverty rate in Argentina rose slightly in early 2026, by a count that runs four times a year. The official half-year figure lands on 24 September.
Three in ten people in Argentine cities cannot cover a basket of food, power and transport. After two years of falling, the poverty rate in Argentina has turned back up.
Where the line sits, and who draws it
INDEC, Argentina’s national statistics office, draws the official line twice a year. It covers 31 large urban areas.
Rural districts and small towns fall outside that count altogether. Whatever happens there does not reach the national figure.
A household is poor when its income cannot cover a basic basket of food and other essentials. Indigence is the deeper line: income that cannot even cover the food.
The last official reading put poverty at 28.2 percent for the second half of 2025. In those cities that was about 8.5 million people.
Indigence stood at 6.3 percent, or roughly 1.9 million people. Argentina had not seen a number that low since 2018.
The second count runs faster than the first
The Catholic University of Argentina, known as the UCA, keeps an observatory of its own. It rebuilds poverty from the same INDEC survey files, four times a year instead of two.
On 4 August the UCA put poverty at 30 percent for the first quarter of 2026. Indigence came in at 6.5 percent.
That is 0.1 points above the final quarter of 2025. It sits 3.1 points above the low the observatory measured in the third quarter of 2025.
Against the same quarter a year earlier, poverty is still 1.4 points lower. The UCA calls the falling phase over.
What it describes now is stagnation, with early signs of reversal.
Two other teams opened the same files and landed nearby. ExQuanti, a Buenos Aires consultancy, put the first quarter at 30.7 percent, against 29.9 percent in late 2025.
Leopoldo Tornarolli, a researcher at the National University of La Plata, came out at 30.1 percent. La Nacion counted roughly 600,000 more poor people behind those decimals.
These are estimates built from survey files, not head counts. Each team applies its own method, and the answers differ by less than a point.
This would be the second rise, and the smaller one
President Javier Milei took office on 10 December 2023. Poverty has risen once on his watch already, and it rose hard.
INDEC put it at 52.9 percent in the first half of 2024. The comparable figure for the half year before was 41.7 percent.
That was a jump of more than 11 points in six months. The rate then fell to 38.1 percent, to 31.6 percent, and to 28.2 percent.
Those three readings cover the second half of 2024 and both halves of 2025. La Nacion notes that the private series had already ticked upward in late 2025.
A rise now would be the second under Milei rather than the first. It would also be a fraction of the size.
What stopped the fall
The UCA points at household incomes that stopped keeping pace. Power, gas, water and transport bills now take a larger share of the budget.
It also points at informal work and weaker jobs. Underemployment rose across the same months.
Pensions and family benefits move with a two-month lag. When prices jump, those payments arrive behind them.
Nominal incomes did rise 35.6 percent over the year, faster than the baskets themselves. Higher-earning households simply gained more of that than poorer ones did.
The government tells the two-year story instead
Economy Minister Luis Caputo credits growth, falling inflation and direct payments to households. Those forces, the government says, drove poverty down through 2025.
The International Monetary Fund, the IMF, reads the two-year stretch the same way. It named lower inflation, higher real incomes and larger transfers.
The IMF also found the biggest gains went to families with children and to informal workers. Those are the households most exposed if incomes stall.
Julie Kozack, the Fund spokesperson, repeated the line on 10 September. Argentina, she said, had cut inflation, resumed growth and reduced poverty.
Nobody in the government has answered the UCA study in public. The statistics office has not published a figure of its own for 2026.
One average, and the distances inside it
The national number hides distances that are wider than the number itself. Concordia stood highest at 52.5 percent, then Gran Resistencia at 49.7 percent.
Posadas came in at 42.6 percent and Gran Santa Fe at 39.7 percent. The city of Buenos Aires was lowest of all, at 8.4 percent.
The suburbs ringing that same capital, home to millions, stood at 34.3 percent. No other figure moves the national average as much.
A job is not always a way across the line. The UCA found 20.6 percent of workers living below it.
The date on the calendar
INDEC publishes its official first-half 2026 poverty report on 24 September 2026. The date sits on the office release calendar.
That reading covers January to June, so it will not line up with a single quarter. The private figures are a signal, not a verdict.
One half-year number will not settle the direction either. Poverty here has swung more than 20 points in two years.
The peso traded at 1,509.9 to the US dollar on 14 September 2026. Every step down in the currency lifts the price of imported food inside the basket.
More: Argentina news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Argentina’s poverty rate right now?
The last official figure is 28.2 percent, for the second half of 2025. The Catholic University of Argentina estimates 30 percent for early 2026.
Is poverty in Argentina going up or down?
The poverty rate in Argentina fell through 2025 and has edged up since. Private counts put the first quarter of 2026 between 30 and 30.7 percent.
When will the new Argentine poverty figures come out?
INDEC, the national statistics office, releases the official first-half 2026 report on 24 September 2026.
Which parts of Argentina are the poorest?
Concordia, at 52.5 percent, and Gran Resistencia, at 49.7 percent. The city of Buenos Aires is lowest, at 8.4 percent.
Sources: Reporting from the UCA social debt observatory, INDEC, TN, La Nacion, Infobae and the Buenos Aires Times. https://tn.com.ar/economia/2026/08/04/para-la-uca-la-pobreza-fue-del-30-en-el-primer-trimestre-de-2026-y-la-indigencia-bajo-a-65/ https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/la-pobreza-aumento-en-el-primer-trimestre-y-hay-unos-600000-nuevos-pobres-nid03082026/ https://www.indec.gob.ar/uploads/informesdeprensa/eph_pobreza_03_269225CA3217.pdf https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/sharp-drop-in-argentinas-poverty-rate-delivers-boost-for-milei.phtml https://www.indec.gob.ar/ftp/cuadros/publicaciones/calendario_2sem2026.pdf https://www.infobae.com/economia/2026/09/10/pese-a-las-dudas-sobre-la-actividad-economica-el-fmi-respalda-los-resultados-del-programa-argentino-cuando-sera-la-proxima-mision/
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief
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