Faced with President Javier Milei’s accusation that the poverty estimates that reached 57.4% in January this year, released by the UCA Social Observatory, are “a design”, its director said Agustin Salvia Clarion that the President “is not well informed”. And he remembered that when poverty increases, The various governments in power have always accused the UCA measurements of saving their responsibilities.
“We don’t have a government that didn’t criticize poverty measurements from 2007 onwards and then supported our measurements when they were in opposition,” Salvia added.
For example, 7 days after the passage of the government, compared to the UCA data which marked the exit from poverty, Alberto Fernández said “it was measured badly.”
Former president Mauricio Macri also spoke out against the UCA Report of August 2016, according to which there had been “one million more poor people”. Macri then stated that under his government “Argentina is moving towards zero poverty” and concluded with 35%.
After reaffirming that the poverty rates of the Observatory and those of the INDEC differ by a few tenths or points but evolve in a very similar way, Salvia explained that “the estimates of poverty and poverty rates for December 2023 and January 2024 constitute statistical projections carried out by the Observatory through simulation exercises on microdata for the third quarter of 2023. These projections were carried out using nowcasting techniques. This is a technique used to provide real-time estimates or short-term forecasts using current, readily available data. Instead of relying solely on historical data, “Nowcasting allows us to carry out simulations by incorporating real-time information to obtain more precise and up-to-date projections.”
The January 2024 data, added Salvia, “were based on the incomes of the third quarter of 2023, updated based on the changes that families’ incomes from work, pensions and other non-work income would have undergone, as well as the increases in the programs social security, monetary transfers. In turn, the consumption baskets were updated based on the change in values according to INDEC information,” Salvia said.
In December the INDEC poverty basket increased by 27% and in January by 20.4%: an increase of 52.9%, higher than inflation. Meanwhile, in January, in the Metropolitan Region, the poverty basket for an adult was $193,146 and for a typical family it was $596,823, not including rent.
Over the past 20 years, Salvia has stated that “Post-convertibility social improvements had already stopped around 2007-2009. And most clearly, the deterioration began in 2013-2014, worsened in 2016, and, after an unsustainable improvement in 2017, tended to worsen almost constantly until 2023, with or without the involvement of a pandemic. From there the statistical projections show the obvious: Given the measures of devaluation, fiscal adjustment and liquefaction of assets and current income, both destitution and poverty would have increased significantly.”.
Source: Clarin
