The Low of poverty would be less than what the government declares, although the improvement process exists and is concrete. For analysts who follow the evolution of social indicators, Data on evolution of wages, consumption and employment rate do not match with the collapse of the indices shown by the Executive.
That is due to a couple of issues: on the one hand, There is a component of change of consumption habits That the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC) still does not register in the measurement of inflation. On the other, In 2024 there was a modification in the organism’s methodology to capture the data on population income.
According to the Social Debt Observatory of the Argentine Catholic University (UCA), The loss of poverty would be overestimated in 4 or 5 points regarding what the government says.
This Thursday, the Ministry of Human Capital spread its own reportbased on INDEC data in which he points out that The fall of poverty between the first quarter of last year and in 2025 was 23 pointssomething that President Javier Milei usually highlights in his speeches.
Agustín Salvia, director of the UCA Observatory, raised Scope that “one cannot be against the improvement of the indices but INDEC has to inform if there was a methodological change ”. He also presented his criticism of the lack of update of the basket with which the CPI is measured.
The director of Social Debt Observatory He explained that “the official figures informed in matter of income and poverty, based on the EFH, are being ‘rare’, This occurs from the third quarter of 2024 ”.
“While cIt opened to expect a recovery of income and a fall in poverty, it is falling is stronger than the forecast from other sources. At least 4-5 points of this improvement or fall are not explained by the relative economic improvements or the fall of inflation, ”he said.
Salvia also explained that “we must also bear in mind that In any case that in this fall is not taking into account the change in the price system. “ In that sense, he pointed out that if the way of measuring inflation was also modified “I would add about 2 points” to the inconsistency that is noted in the official numbers.
The researcher indicated that with the stability brought by inflation decline The public has greater capacity to estimate their income, Because he remembers how long he won last month, something that does not happen in price acceleration processes.
Salvia says that in the third quarter of last year, INDEC began to measure a Increase in population income that did not match other related indicators.
Almost half of the people say that silver is not enough
On the other hand, according to UCA data there is a negative perception of the public about their own income.
47% say it is not enough. And that, he explained, has to do with the change in the composition of the consumption of the population that is not captured by INDEC.
It is because eThe weight of services is higher than that of tradable goods. Although people register income improvements, they have to allocate to pay rates. That indicates that there is an income improvement, but not of consumption. “HOh a change in the price system and the basic basket is not being updated, ”explained the head of the Social Debt Observatory.
Source: Ambito
