The Minister of Social Development, Victoria Tolosa Paz, maintained that the poverty rate released yesterday “hurts and occupies” the national government and asserted that they will “redouble efforts” to optimize the purchasing power of wages, after learning that the 39 .2% of people in Argentina are poor.
“The poverty index that INDEC made known hurts us and occupies us. Inflation is taking the country’s growth to a few pockets, leaving a large part of the population plunged into the uncertainty and anguish of being able to bring bread home,” the official wrote from her Twitter account.
“We do not deny these indicators, we take responsibility for this reality,” admitted the national official.
Yesterday, INDEC reported that the poverty rate reached 39.2% of the economically active population at the end of the second semester of last year, above 37.3% in the same period of 2021.
Meanwhile, the indigence index, understood as the portion of the poor whose income is not enough to buy the minimum amount of food to survive, stood at 8.1% between July and September of last year, compared to 8.8%. of the same period of 2021.
Regarding the first semester of 2022, when the poverty index was 36.5%, the 39.2% of the second semester was also higher.
Meanwhile, the level of indigence registered almost no changes since in the second semester it ended at 8.1% against 8.2% in the first semester.
In his publication, Tolosa Paz said that “it is not just another piece of information, it is the engine of our daily work” and added that “it is the State that takes care of those who have less.”
“We came to order public policies so that this accompaniment can reach where it is needed, also taking care of the efforts of the entire society,” he said. For this reason, he affirmed: “We support the vocation of our president @alferdez to work to continue solving the problems of the Argentine people” since “it is through the investment of the State that we achieve more equality, generate work and improve the quality of life of all and all”.
“We will continue to redouble our efforts to have a more just, free and sovereign Homeland,” he concluded.
Yesterday, as soon as the figures were released, the minister said from Entre Ríos (where she was holding working meetings with Governor Gustavo Bordet and Lieutenant Governor María Laura Stratta) that “Argentina measures poverty by income and that every time there is an inflationary process, unfortunately poverty increases”.
At this point, he asked to “be vigilant and monitor to increase the Food Card and closely follow the Universal Allowance per Child that increases twice a year, by law.” However, he considered that “we also need to move towards a law that gives us security in the coverage of food with the Alimentar Card”.
“We work from the Ministry of Social Development with the Ministry of Economy so that when we know these indicators there is an immediate comprehensive response, but to end poverty this country has to finish developing”; she said.
He also added that “we have to be able to have levels of inclusion and fundamentally we have to be the ones who continue working and fighting to eradicate the drama and the scourge of inflation.” Tolosa Paz also analyzed that “just as these numbers hurt, it is also true that employment in Argentina continues to grow” but insisted on the need to “resolve inflation” to prop up wages.
