Meanwhile, Javier Milei became President of Argentina in late 2023. He didn’t declare a war on poverty. Instead he declared a war on bloated and inefficient government.
As it turns out, his libertarian agenda has been great news for poor people. Here are he latest numbers from Argentina showing dramatic reductions in the poverty rate.
The chart comes from a report in Bloomberg by Manuela Tobias. Here are some excerpts.
Poverty in Argentina fell to the lowest level since the first half of 2018 in another victory for President Javier Milei… In the second half of 2025, 28.2% of Argentines lived in poverty, down from 31.6% in the first half, according to data published Tuesday by Argentina’s statistics agency. …“The sharp drop in poverty and extreme poverty is supported by economic growth, the disinflation process, and the strengthening of social programs without intermediaries since the beginning of the administration,” Economy Minister Luis Caputo wrote on X. …Since Milei took office, inflation has slowed significantly in Argentina, from a monthly rate of 25.5% in December 2023 to 2.9% this February.
The Buenos Aires Times also reported on Milei’s success.
Here are some passages from the story.
Argentina’s poverty rate fell sharply to 28.2 percent in the second half of last year – a fall of more than 10 points from a year previous, according to official data. …Compared with data from the first half of 2025, the incidence of poverty declined for both households and individuals by 3.1 and 3.4 percentage points respectively. Extreme poverty dropped 0.6 points. …Milei’s government welcomed the news and attributed the fall in these rates to the success of its economic programme, which reduced inflation from 117.8 percent at the end of 2024 to 31.5 percent by the end of 2025. Since taking office in December 2023, Milei has slashed government spending and dismissed thousands of public officials as part of his “chainsaw” austerity approach to governance. In the first half of 2024, 52.9 percent of the population was living in poverty, according to INDEC data. Extreme poverty, by comparison, stood at 18.1 percent. Poverty fell sharply in the second half of that year as Milei sharply tamed inflation, dropping nearly 14 percentage points to 38.1 percent – three points lower than the same period in 2023. The trend continued into the first half of 2025, with poverty falling to 31.6 percent – the lowest level since the 31.5 percent recorded in the second half of 2018. Extreme poverty stood at 6.9 percent.
As noted in the article, there are two poverty rates in Argentina, one that measures low-income households (“Pobreza”) and one that measures severe poverty (“Indigencia”).
As you can see from this chart, both measures have improved dramatically since Milei took office and began to implement his reforms.
I’ll close by reiterating what I wrote about 10 days ago, which is that there are still major problems Milei needs to fix and major imbalances that exist (especially with regards to the monetary crisis he inherited).
