Milei’s spending on social plans has increased so far this year

President Javier Milei proudly told Congress that There have been no pickets in the City and Greater Buenos Aires for four months reason has an economic background: The Government eliminated intermediaries and increased public spending on social benefits and plans that go directly to their beneficiaries..

9th of July Avenuea regular scene of street blockades and protests by social organizations, Today is normal traffic. And that is what contributes to that The amounts of the Universal Child Allowance (AUH) and the Universal Pregnancy Allowance have grown by 374% since the beginning of December 2023compared to an accumulated inflation of 144.4% in ten months, which means a 94% jump in real terms -above inflation-. They almost doubled their purchasing power.

Between January and August, spending on social assistance to individuals and family allowances reached $3,350,509.99 million – $3.35 trillion. This is a 1.4% drop in real terms compared to the same period in 2023, according to calculations by the Congressional Budget Office (OPC), which clarified that If the comparison is with December – the first month of La Libertad Avanza (LLA) in government – there is a real growth of 0.9%.

“The coverage of the sum of the AUH and the Food Card (which increased by 138%) went from 55% of the Basic Food Basket (CBA) in December 2023 at a 98% in August 2024“, the Government stressed in a message that accompanied the 2025 Budget bill.

“In addition, the nutritional supplement of the 1,000-day Plan, which benefits almost 700,000 people, multiplied by 6 in April, going from $3,303 to $19,818, and increases monthly in accordance with the mobility index, with an accumulated increase of 1,322% until August,” he added.

The Government also pointed out that “with the aim of supporting the efforts of families in Education, The family allowance for Annual School Aid increased by more than 300% with respect to the one in force in December 2023, up to an amount of $70,000 per child”, which reaches some 7.3 million children and adolescents.

Maria Miglioredirector of Socioproductive Integration at Fundar, explained: “On the one hand, the AUH, with 4 million beneficiaries, grew 101% in real terms between December 2023 and August 2024 and is the transfer on which this new government focused.”

“On the other hand, the Food Benefit, which will be added from October to beneficiaries between 15 and 17 years old, fell 6.2% and does not have a clear update criterion. The Potenciar Trabajo program, which was later divided into two programs (Volver al Trabajo and Acompaniamiento Social) has had frozen amounts since December, which implies a real reduction of 48%,” he added.

The Potenciar Trabajo program, which had more than 1.2 million beneficiarieswas reformulated because it “proved to be ineffective to achieve job insertion, while at the same time intermediary scheme “it favored irregularities in its implementation.”

Precisely, Oswald Jordanpresident of the Institute for Studies on Argentine and Latin American Reality (IERAL) of the Fundación Mediterránea, told Clarín that the elimination of intermediaries is the main reason for the end of the pickets.

“The street cuts were more associated with Potenciar Trabajo, a plan that went to the picketers who were intermediaries and that gave them the power to bring the final beneficiaries to the mobilizations. If they did not attend, they did not receive the plan. By cutting that, it ended, which shows that The pickets were not a spontaneous phenomenon of people in need, but there was a logistics and organization “back,” said the former Executive Director of the National Social Security Administration (ANSES).