Faced with President Javier Milei's accusation that the poverty estimates that reached 57.4% as of January of this year, released by the UCA Social Observatory, are “a drawing,” its director Agustín Salvia told
Clarín
that the President “is not well informed.”
And he recalled that when poverty increases,
the different governments in power always accused the UCA measurements to save their responsibilities.
“We do not have a Government that has not criticized poverty measurements from 2007 onwards and then supported our measurements when they are in opposition,” Salvia added.
For example, with 7 days left until the transfer of the Government, in relation to the UCA figures that marked a jump in poverty,
Alberto Fernández said that “it was poorly measured.”
Former President Mauricio Macri also came out against the UCA Report of August 2016, which claimed that there were
“one million more poor people
. ”
Macri then said that under his government "Argentina is heading 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 were evolving in a very similar way, Salvia explained that “the estimates of indigence and poverty rates for December 2023 and January 2024 constitute statistical projections made by the Observatory through simulation exercises on microdata for the third quarter of 2023. These projections were made using nowcasting techniques.
This is a technique used to provide real-time estimates or short-term predictions using current and immediately available data.
Instead of relying solely on historical data,
nowcasting allows simulations to be carried out incorporating real-time information to obtain more accurate and up-to-date projections.”
The data for January 2024, added Salvia, “were based on the income of the third quarter of 2023, updated based on the variations that the labor, pension and other non-labor income of households would have experienced, as well as the increases in the social security programs. monetary transfers.
In turn, the consumption baskets were updated based on the variation in values according to information from INDEC,” said Salvia.
In December the INDEC poverty basket increased by 27% and in January by 20.4%: an increase of 52.9%, above 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, without considering rent.
Over the past 20 years, Salvia said that “
post-convertibility social improvements had already stopped around 2007-2009
.”
And more clearly, the deterioration began in 2013-2014, worsened in 2016, and after an unsustainable improvement in 2017, they tended to worsen almost steadily until 2023, with or without a pandemic involved.
From there, the statistical projections show what is obvious:
given the measures of devaluation, fiscal adjustment and liquefaction of assets and current income, both indigence and poverty would have significantly increased
.