These days, the estimates published by the UCA have put their finger on the most uncomfortable sore in Argentine society: the incessant growth of its poverty rate.
Various specialists agree that the numbers for the first half of 2024 will be dramatic.
What performance has the Government had in terms of social policy, both in terms of cushioning the social costs of adjustment and in structurally addressing the problem of poverty?
I will try to answer this question by analyzing four central public policies in the fight against poverty: family allowances, non-contributory pensions, food policy and investment in urban infrastructure.
Income transfer policies towards children, which began to occupy a central place since 2009 with the creation of the Universal Child Allowance (AUH), have been consolidated as a State policy.
Each government that has succeeded since then has increased investment in these policies: Macri extended the AUH to the children of monotributistas and Alberto Fernández created the Alimentar Card, which in practice works as a complement to the AUH.
The Milei government exhibited healthy continuity with previous governments, by doubling the nominal benefits of the AUH and the Alimentar Card.
This decision is crucial not only because poverty rates among children (56.2% for the first half of 2023) far exceed that of the general population (40.1%), but also because this type of social policies have a huge redistributive impact.
Unfortunately, this success was not replicated for the retiree segment.
The problem of the drop in retirement benefits did not begin with Milei.
Together with Lara Forlino, we estimate in a CIAS/FUNDAR study that, between 2017 and 2022, the drop in real spending on non-contributory retirements and pensions was 17.97%.
Given the magnitude of this drop, it is urgent to modify the retirement mobility formula so that retirees do not continue to be the policy adjustment variable.
This formula adjusts pensions on a quarterly basis through tax collection and salaries, and contains at least two problems: salaries run far behind inflation, and the timing of the adjustment (quarterly) is not compatible with a level of monthly inflation that erodes strongly fixed income in pesos.
The idea proposed in the debates on the fiscal chapter of the omnibus law, which consisted of adjusting pensions by the monthly CPI, was going in the right direction (even when the connection between the formulas remained to be defined).
However, the fight between the central government and the governors ended up shelving the new retirement mobility formula, which today sleeps the sleep of the just.
Food policy has been, without a doubt, the most deficient aspect.
Today there are more than 40,000 community kitchens that are central to feeding the most humble.
The Government has proposed eliminating intermediaries in the distribution of food to these canteens.
As I have already pointed out in another note, it is essential to rethink the national government's food policy, which has enormous problems.
But it is unprecedented that, in the midst of such a critical social situation, the distribution of food is suspended due to the dispute with the social movements (which manage a significant number of the soup kitchens in Argentina).
What's more, the government shows an inconsistency in its original plan: it punishes the intermediaries it does not like (the social movements) while rewarding the intermediaries with which it feels more related (the churches that run soup kitchens).
Finally, within the framework of the government's fiscal adjustment plan, the Socio-Urban Integration Fund (FISU), created by Macri and continued by Alberto Fernández, was practically liquidated.
Its objective is the urbanization of popular neighborhoods, guaranteeing the access of its inhabitants to essential services (sewers, pavement, electricity, etc.).
The FISU received 9% of the Country Tax collection, but now it will receive only 0.3%.
The debate that the Government has promoted about the problems of trust funds as vehicles for financing and administering public policy is reasonable.
It is even valid to rethink, as Sebastián Welisiejko has pointed out, the way in which the FISU has been investing, more focused on housing improvements within popular neighborhoods (the “Mi Piece” program) than on services for the neighborhoods.
But none of that is on the Government's agenda.
Rather, it seeks to reduce the financing available for the urbanization of popular neighborhoods.
This is unacceptable: it is one of the most important tools to reduce structural poverty and equalize opportunities for progress between social classes.
In conclusion, the central problem of the Government is that it has subordinated social policy to the logic of its conflicts with social actors.
The retirement mobility formula is not updated due to conflicts with the governors;
Food policy is paralyzed and investment in popular neighborhoods is eliminated due to conflicts with social movements.
The President had promised us that the only open wallet was going to be that of the Ministry of Human Capital, “to contain the fallen.”
Today the fallen are hostages to the multiple political conflicts that consume the government.
Andrés Schipani is a professor at the University of San Andrés / Researcher at the IU-CIAS