High inflation pushes poverty rate even higher in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — One of the world’s highest inflation rates is making it more difficult to make ends meet in Argentina, where at the end of last year nearly four of every 10 people were poor, official figures revealed Thursday.

Poverty increased to 39.2% of the population in the second half of 2022, a three percentage point increase from the first six months of the year, said Argentina’s national statistics agency, INDEC. Among children under age 15, the poverty rate increased more than three percentage points to 54.2%.

In a poor neighborhood in Argentina’s capital, those who run a soup kitchen don’t need the statistics to tell them what they have been seeing amid an economy wracked by inflation that reached 94.8% last year.

“There’s more poverty than before,” said Graciela Gamarra, who runs the soup kitchen in the Fraga district that hands out more than 800 portions of food every weekday afternoon.