Argentina's poverty rate climbs to nearly one in three under Milei
Argentina’s poverty rate rose to 32.3% in the first half of 2026 from 28.2% in the previous six months, official data showed on Thursday, as incomes lagged rising prices. Extreme poverty climbed to 7.5% from 6.3%. Among children aged 14 and under, 44.5% were poor.
Argentina's poverty rate increased to 32.3 percent in the first half of 2026, partly erasing gains made under President Javier Milei as incomes fail to keep step with rising prices, official statistics showed Thursday.
The rate grew 4.1 points compared to the last half of 2025, the national statistics agency Indec said.
The rate of extreme poverty also shot up from 6.3 percent to 7.5 percent.
Children were the worst hit, with 44.5 percent of Argentines aged 14 years and younger classified as poor, and 10.8 percent as extremely poor.
Indec considers adults who cannot afford a basic basket of goods and services valued at around $340 to be poor.
It considers those who cannot afford a more basic food-only basket worth around $150 to be extremely poor.
The figures deal a setback to Milei, a free-market radical, who nearly halved the poverty rate during the first two years of his mandate, mainly by shrinking perennially high inflation.
The poverty rate has swung wildly since he came to power on a promise to revive the moribund economy through drastic austerity measures and deregulation.
READ MOREArgentines protest Milei's austerity, demanding higher wages and public spending
From a high of 52.9 percent in the first half of 2024, following his more-than-50-percent devaluation of the peso, the rate fell to 28.2 percent in the second half of 2025.
This year's increase coincided with a rebound in inflation at the start of the year before a new decline to 1.7 percent in August, the lowest level in 14 months.
Eduardo Donza, a researcher at the Social Debt Observatory of the Argentine Catholic University (UCA), blamed job insecurity for high poverty rates in South America's second-largest economy.
The manufacturing and retail sectors have hemorrhaged jobs due to falling purchasing power and Milei's decision to threw open Argentina to foreign competition, leading to a surge in imports.
Some 30,000 companies have closed since he took office, and unemployment rose to 7.9 percent in the second quarter of this year, the highest level since 2021.
Economists say that, more than unemployment, poverty is being driven by the high rate of informal work.
"The biggest problem is job insecurity, not unemployment, because when families are deprived...they have to invent a job, which can be collecting waste, street vending, selling food at the train station," said Donza.
Milei claims that he has lifted 14 million people out of poverty -- an estimate based on the fall in poverty from the peak it hit after he became president.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Colombia plans to open megaprison in December
Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Colombia plans to soon move prisoners into a nearly 2,000-inmate megaprison, opening the sprawling complex in stages before construction is completed. It is a major effort by the government to expand maximum-security capacity.
The complex is more than 80% complete, according to the Magdalena government, which said work will continue as sections of the prison become operational. Renacer will eventually have space for 1,974 prisoners and encompasses about 646,000 square feet on a 54-acre property, according to Colombia's Prison and Jail Services Unit, known as USPEC. The complex is designed to severely restrict prisoners' contact with the outside world. Colombian media reported, citing USPEC officials, that the facility includes reinforced infrastructure intended to prevent communication between prisoners and technology to block cellphone and Internet signals.
The security features have prompted comparisons in Colombian and international media with the prison policies of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, whose government built the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, as part of its crackdown on gangs.
President Abelardo De La Espriella has advocated expanding Colombia's use of remote, high-security prisons and has proposed building additional large penitentiaries for some of the country's most dangerous inmates.
Renacer, however, predates De La Espriella's administration.
The project was developed during the government of former President Iván Duque to add prison capacity and alleviate overcrowding in Colombia's Caribbean region. The construction contract was awarded in 2019 and work began the following year, according to USPEC information reported by El Espectador.
The orison originally was expected to be completed within 32 months, but has faced years of delays involving funding, infrastructure requirements, environmental permits, the COVID-19 pandemic and security problems.
The delays have substantially increased its cost. The project initially was valued at about $56 million, but has since climbed to approximately $87 million after three additions to the original contract, according to El Espectador.
National and regional authorities inspected Renacer in late September in an effort to accelerate its completion.
The Magdalena government said that as of July, physical construction was 86% complete while financial execution stood at 75%. More recent estimates from USPEC put physical progress at about 88%.
Officials are also working to improve access to the remote facility. The Magdalena government said studies have begun on upgrades to the road connecting the prison area with Colombia's Ruta del Sol highway.
Renacer comes as Colombia continues to struggle with overcrowding across its prison system -- a rate of 27.1% in March, according to the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute, or INPEC.
Government figures have previously put the national prison system's official capacity at about 82,000 people but the country was holding more than 100,000 prisoners.
The Constitutional Court has for decades identified structural problems in Colombia's prison system, including overcrowding and conditions that have affected inmates' fundamental rights.
Guerra said the government has secured the resources needed to finish Renacer after years of delays.
"After more than six years, the community waited for the completion of the penitentiary center," Guerra said in a social media post following the latest inspection.
The government has not said how many prisoners will be transferred to Renacer during the initial phase or which inmates will be selected for the first transfers.
