Poverty fell to 28.2% at the end of 2025 and marked the lowest level in seven years

For its part, indigence – a subcategory of poverty that encompasses people who do not cover the basic food basket – It stood at 6.3%.

The previous measurement had recorded a poverty of 31.6% and indigence of 6.9%.

The reduction in poverty is a consequence of a combination between the reduction of inflation, which went from 211% in 2023 to 31.5% in 2025, along with the effect of the increase in the Universal Child Allowance (AUH), which grew 110% in real terms. In fact, it is the only item of social spending that has avoided the effect of the chainsaw so far in this administration. It also influenced food slowdownwhich went from being the item that grew the most in 2023 to being below the Consumer Price Index (CPI) last year and to a lesser extent a certain recomposition of the income of informal workers.

Poverty went from 41.7% in the second half of 2023 to 52.9% in the first half of 2024, in the midst of the inflationary shock at the start of Javier Milei’s administration. From there a rapid correction began, with a drop to 38.1% in the second half of 2024 and to 31.6% in the first half of 2025.

The Government came out to celebrate on the networks. “Poverty in Argentina stood at 28.2% during the second half of 2025, according to the measurement published by @INDECArgentina, which means an interannual decrease of 9.9 percentage points compared to the second half of 2024. Likewise, indigence also showed a year-on-year decrease, standing at 6.3%, compared to 8.2% in the second half of 2024,” said Sandra Pettovello X, Minister of Human Capital.

Poverty in Argentina It is calculated semiannually based on the Permanent Household Survey (EPH) and responds to an income criterion: it measures what percentage of the population is not able to cover the Total Basic Basket (CBT) and, in the case of indigence, the Basic Food Basket (CBA).

“The behavior of food and beverages is decisive—it defines indigence and has a strong weight in poverty—and the same happens with the evolution of income, especially unregistered income and social transfers such as AUH and allowances, which concentrate a large part of the income of the most vulnerable sectors,” says Facundo Beltramone, Economist at Fundación Libertad.

Despite the improvement in 2025, the leveling off of inflation threatens to halt the decline in poverty. Specifically, the measurements carried out month by month by the Torcuato di Tella University show that since October of last year poverty has risen again.

“Food no longer plays as much in favor of the fall of poverty as before. The key is not only that inflation goes down, but how the prices that weigh most in the basket move compared to income: in 2024 that relationship was very favorable; in 2025, much more balanced,” adds Beltramone.

Furthermore, the lower growth in economic activity affects informal work and income, which has not completely recovered. Due to the drop in employment, Unemployment was 7.5% in the fourth quarter of 2025, which marks a growth of 1.1 percentage points compared to the same period in 2024.

Unemployment had a sharp increase in the Greater Buenos Aires parties. In one year, it went from 8% (507,000 unemployed) to 9.5% (604,000), while the employed fell from 5,854,000 to 5,741,000.