Poverty in Argentina drops from 42.0% to 40.6% in first semester 2021

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The poverty rate in Argentina stood at 40.6% in the first half of the year, a reduction of 1.4 percentage points compared to the second half of 2020, the state statistical institute Indec reported on Thursday.

On the other hand, in the case of poverty, which indicates people who cannot cover basic food expenses, the official study placed it at 10.7%, an increase of 0.2 percentage points, compared to the second semester of last year.

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Impacted by the pandemic, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell 9.9% in 2020. Still, as the vaccination against Covid-19 and the governmental stimuli advanced this year, the economy has been recovering 10.5% year-on-year in the seven months between January and July.

The Indec survey is conducted on the 31 largest urban conglomerates and not on the entire population of 45 million people. Still, it offers an overall picture that can be projected to the whole country.

More than half (54.3%) of people aged 0 to 14 are poor. The number of people below the poverty line, i.e., not enough to cover the whole basket of household expenses, reached 11.7 million, of which 3.0 million are indigent.

The economy has been in recession since 2018, but the indicators were aggravated by the restrictions on the movement of people, goods, and services adopted to combat the pandemic.

GDP will grow 7.6% this year, according to the latest estimate of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The unemployment rate in Argentina was 9.6% in the second quarter of 2021, a year-on-year decrease of 3.5 percentage points.