Overview
- INDEC reported poverty at 28.2% for the second half of 2025, a drop of 3.4 points from the first half, in the lowest reading in years.
- UCA’s Agustín Salvia called the decline a “methodological fiction,” arguing the poverty line relies on consumption baskets and price weights set in 2004–2005.
- Improved capture of social transfers lifted reported household incomes even as wages and pensions lost buying power, with families cutting basics like dairy and yerba as utility bills took a larger share.
- Because INDEC publishes semester averages, analysts say the figure reads like an old snapshot, with Salvia estimating poverty near 30% in the final quarter and private consultancies noting a late‑period rise.
- Experts view the fall in extreme poverty as more credible due to slower food inflation, yet warn overall poverty may be stuck around 25%–30% in a persistent, structural range.