Poverty in Argentina rose to 32.3% in first half of 2026

Poverty in Argentina has surged to 32.3% of the population in the first half of 2026, according to official data from the INDEC national statistics bureau. This marks a 4.1 percentage point increase from the end of 2025, when the figure stood at 28.2%. The bureau reported that 32.3% of people were living in poverty, up from 28.2% at the end of 2025.

This rise is particularly pronounced in smaller regions, with urban areas of over 500,000 inhabitants seeing a 3.9% increase and those with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants experiencing a 4.9% increase over the same period. In urban areas, 9.7 million people were classified as living below the poverty line, which would rise to a larger number when extrapolated to the entire country.

Extreme poverty, defined as living in households earning less than 1.53 million pesos per month (or 690,000 pesos for extreme poverty), affected 7.5% of the population, or 2.2 million people in urban areas. The government of President Javier Milei, which initially made significant progress in tackling poverty, is now facing this reversal.

Economy Minister Luis Caputo attributed the rise to the increasing cost of basic goods and services, which has outpaced household income growth. Children and adolescents are among the most affected, with 10.8% of those aged 0-14 living in extreme poverty and 33.7% in poverty. The region of Concordia in Entre Ríos Province had the highest poverty rate at 56.2%, followed by Gran Resistencia in Chaco Province at 48.6% and Posadas in Misiones Province at 42.2%. In contrast, the Greater Buenos Aires area surrounding the capital had the lowest poverty rate.