The Kirchnerist model is falling apart: The UCA estimates that poverty affects 43.1% of Argentines

The measurement of multidimensional poverty of the Argentine Catholic University (UCA) warns that 18 million Argentines fell below this threshold, and up to 3.3 million people are counted in a situation of indigence. The marginality increased by almost 4 points since Cristina and Alberto assumed the presidency.

The dysfunctional organization of the Kirchnerist economy has contributed to multiplying the number of people who have fallen into poverty and indigence in recent years. The Social Debt Observatory of the Argentine Catholic University (UCA) confirmed that its poverty measurement reached 43.1% in 2022.

This is one of the most extreme records on record, slightly below the 44.7% reached in 2020, but higher than the 42.4% registered during 2021. The stagnation of the economy and the violent outbreak of inflation were the main explanatory factors for the increase in social marginality.

Under the administration of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Alberto Fernández, poverty increased from 39.8% to 43.1%, using a multidimensional measurement that not only takes into account the behavior of income but also structural factors such as unsatisfied basic needs.

The inheritance of the Kirchnerist model led to 18 million people currently being below the poverty line. Likewise, the indigence rate according to the UCA rose to 8.1% by 2022 and affected 3.3 million people.

These statistics are calculated by accounting for the various social programs and rate subsidies that millions of people receive every month, but which actually hide a dramatic situation.

The UCA estimates that without subsidies or social assistance, poverty would reach 51.7% of the population, and up to 40.4% of Argentine households. This “underlying” poverty line and typical of the true conditions offered by the economy, accumulated an increase of almost 8 percentage points since Cristina Kirchner and Alberto Fernández took office.

An increase of 18.8 percentage points has accumulated since 2010, when the Kirchnerist economy stopped growing, stopped creating jobs and began to experience increasingly violent inflation rates.

The UCA measurement adds structural elements that are left aside by the indicators reported by INDEC, but even using the latter, the trend for social deterioration is not really affected.

The estimates of the Di Tella economist, Martín González Rozada, suggest that poverty compatible with the INDEC measurement reached 39.7% in the moving semester that ended in October, and the Kirchner administration shot up this indicator by 4.7% against November 2019. Regardless of the parameters that are considered, the social deterioration under the official administration is evident.

The main characteristics of the model that led to economic and social failure can be summarized as follows: a protectionist economy, price controls and rate distortions, loss-making public companies, exchange rate traps and capital controls, inflationary overflow, chronic fiscal deficit and regulatory asphyxia.

With information from La Derecha Diario