News of Agustina Bordigoni

Agustina Bordigoni

Education spending in real terms drops to lowest since 2006

Today 12:41 Education Secretariat has 1.2 trillion pesos less (at 2025 prices) budgeted than in 2006. One of the hardest-hit programmes is the Teaching Salary Compensation Fund, which has gone from 1.5 trillion pesos a decade ago to just one billion pesos today. What will happen in the 2026 Budget Congress has yet to approve.

by Agustina Bordigoni

HUMAN RIGHTS

How Milei took unaudited disabled people’s benefits away

27-08-2025 17:00 There has been a structural failure in the mass cutting of benefits for disabled people – Argentina's government they sent over 850,000 registered letters to audit beneficiaries, but nearly half of them never made it. Getting them reinstated is a near impossible task.

by Agustina Bordigoni

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Exports to China down 15% year-on-year in first half of 2025

12-08-2025 17:06 Trade deficit with Asian giant is largest among Argentina's leading trading partners; it rose to US$5.227 billion during the first six months of this year.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Shoppers at a supermarket in Buenos Aires.

ECONOMIC WOES

'The stressed' – Argentina's ‘Non-poor’ who can’t reach the end of the month

04-07-2025 06:58 The INDEC national statistics bureau does not consider them poor, but millions of Argentina can’t make it to the end of the month; New study by UCA’s poverty watchdog shines light on those living under “economic stress”

by Agustina Bordigoni

Child poverty in the north of Argentina.

SOCIETY

Child poverty on rise in northwest and northwest of Argentina

24-06-2025 14:18 Child poverty as measured by UCA watchdog dropped from 58.8% to 52.8% nationwide between second halves of 2023 and 2024. But the drop was uneven and, in some parts of Argentina’s north, the situation even worsened.

by Agustina Bordigoni

POVERTY IN ARGENTINA

Quarter of rough sleepers in City have been on streets for less than year

04-06-2025 06:25 NGOs surveyed Commune 1 of Buenos Aires City and found over 1,400 adults sleeping rough. More than three-quarters were men, with many only resorting to homelessness in the last year.

by Agustina Bordigoni

CRISIS BITES

Two minimum wages now cover eight days of family expenses

15-05-2025 00:39 With the national wage council talks deadlocked, the Milei government has again unilaterally established the basic pay increase for registered workers, passing from 296,832 pesos in March to 302,600 pesos in April – a raise of 5,768 pesos.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Greater numbers of older adults are continuing to work into their later years, or looking for work, out of necessity.

TWO SIDES OF SAME COIN

Postcards of a crisis: youth unemployment and working into old age

06-05-2025 12:20 According to data from Argentina's Human Capital Ministry, 19.4% of young people aged 18 to 24 are unemployed. Meanwhile, greater numbers of older adults are continuing to work into their later years, or looking for work, out of necessity.

by Agustina Bordigoni

A man sleeps outside Constitución train station in Buenos Aires on March 10, 2025.

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

UCA observatory says poverty rate reached 41.6% last year

11-03-2025 13:39 New report from respected poverty watchdog, which measures figure on a "multidimensional" basis rather than purely cash, warns of challenges facing Argentina.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Poor Argentines on the streets of Buenos Aires.

POVERTY IN ARGENTINA

Extreme poverty soars to affect six million, study shows

12-11-2024 14:19 Destitution rates have grown much faster than poverty in recent years in Argentina. According to a study by the University of Buenos Aires based on government data, more than six million people were not meeting daily nutritional needs in the first quarter of the year.

by Agustina Bordigoni

POLITICS

Nearly half of Milei’s appointments excused from new hiring rules

30-10-2024 17:14 President Javier Milei’s government announced this month that it will subject 40,000 state employees to an aptitude test, starting in December, with their jobs on the line. But of the new appointments made by the La Libertad Avanza government, around half are exempted from meeting new hiring requirements.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Merendero/Comedor Barrio Sáenz Peña Chaco.

POVERTY IN ARGENTINA

Soup kitchens struggle with growing queues as poverty rises

19-10-2024 06:18 Amid a deep economic crisis, food purchases have slumped 18.6% this year in Argentina. Meanwhile, demand at community soup kitchens is soaring, especially in some of the most impoverished and remote areas of the country.

by Agustina Bordigoni

POVERTY IN ARGENTINA

Numbers have names – the stories behind Argentina’s high poverty rate

27-09-2024 06:52 Argentina’s poverty rate stands at 52%, according to UCA’s Observatorio de la Deuda Social poverty watchdog – the highest level in two decades.

by Agustina Bordigoni

POVERTY

Rising poverty to impact life expectancy, child mortality rates

02-08-2024 17:23 With poverty and extreme poverty on the rise, specialists warn that worsening economic conditions and spending cuts could lead to an increase in child mortality rates and slump in life expectancy.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Women protest at a Ni Una Menos march in Buenos Aires.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Organisations head to courts to request clarity over gender policies

12-07-2024 16:33 Different organisations specialising in gender issues filed a claim in court requesting clarification about the closing of the former Women, Gender & Diversity Ministry. None of the government budget to assist relatives of victims of femicide, transfemicide and transvesticide was touched in the first four months of the year, claim NGOs.

by Agustina Bordigoni

People offer used clothes for barter or sale at a sidewalk in Villa Fiorito – the childhood neighbourhood of late football star Diego Maradona – in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires Province, on November 13, 2023

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Social indicators cast doubt over Milei's 'catastrophe' averted claim

04-07-2024 13:09 President Javier Milei recently stated that the government’s social policy is “extremely good” and it had help prevent a “catastrophe.” Yet the government's own data and reports produced by private institutions indicate most social indicators have recorded a step backwards since he took office.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Argentina's Security Minister Patricia Bullrich visits a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

JUSTICE SYSTEM & PRISONS

Milei slashes budget for legal centres in favour of prison spending

29-06-2024 04:25 Argentina’s Justice Ministry announces closure of 81 Centres of Access to Justice nationwide; Milei government boosts budget for the ‘Criminal Policy’ programme by 963% in move to “modernise Penitentiary Service” and “improve the situation of persons deprived of liberty."

by Agustina Bordigoni

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Budget for Karina Milei's office boosted 219% from last year

10-06-2024 16:33 Preliminary budget data for first five months of the year indicates that funds assigned to the office of the presidential chief-of-staff has soared. Defence and security spending also high.

by Agustina Bordigoni

A homeless person receives a free hot breakfast in Buenos Aires.

Poverty

Crowded soup kitchens, empty classrooms, impoverished pensioners

19-05-2024 05:52 Argentina’s poverty index has grown almost seven points in the last three months and the impact can be seen at schools, soup kitchens and shops across the country. On the streets, millions can’t meet their basic needs. The reality behind the numbers.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Neatly 15% of those aged between 5 and 17 are affected by child labour in Argentina, with huge disparities when it comes to socio-economic level, gender and location.

CHILD POVERTY

An X-ray of child labour in Argentina

17-04-2024 11:56 Neatly 15% of those aged between 5 and 17 are affected by child labour in Argentina, with huge disparities when it comes to socio-economic level, gender and location.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Retirees lost 17% in January. Since 2017, the loss of income reaches 57%.

IMPACT OF AUSTERITY

Financing the fiscal surplus: Stories behind reduction in state spending

08-03-2024 08:52 Argentina recorded its first monthly budget surplus in nearly 12 years in January, President Milei’s first month in office. But according to one analysis, a third of those spending cuts came from a refusal to update pension payments for inflation. A look at the faces behind the figures.

by Agustina Bordigoni

LIVING WITH POVERTY

‘Comedores’ in crisis: Emergency food aid at risk from cuts

15-02-2024 16:30 Milei government’s move to suspend aid to soup kitchens and introduce a new system to ‘cut out the middleman’ damages emergency food assistance efforts.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Following President Javier Milei’s emergency decree DNU 70/2023, prepaid healthcare schemes have announced increases topping 80% for the first two months of this year.

GRIPPED BY CRISIS

In danger of extinction? Middle class slammed by crisis and austerity measures

16-01-2024 17:16 The removal of subsidies, rising rent and the increased costs of prepaid healthcare schemes and private schools are slamming the middle class, specialists warn. March will be a difficult month with the start of classes and the billing of basic public services shooting up.

by Agustina Bordigoni

DOLLARISATION ON THE CARDS?

How is Milei’s plan to dollarise Argentina progressing?

15-01-2024 13:17 La Libertad Avanza’s predominant campaign topic has made a strong comeback – a recent report by JP Morgan warned that dollarisation in Argentina might fail, even if the necessary dollars are obtained, and former economy minister Martín Guzmán says that the process "has already begun."

by Agustina Bordigoni

People pass by used clothes for barter or sale on a sidewalk in Villa Fiorito, Lomas de Zamora on November 13, 2023 where a pedestrian bridge is decorated with portraits of late football star Diego Maradona.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

Five economic issues that will remain on the agenda in 2024

05-01-2024 14:18 Inflation at the start of the year, the official and unofficial exchange rate, employment, wages, poverty, the cepo, interest rates, the fiscal deficit and the IMF debt – just some of the issues that will dominate the next 12 months in Argentina.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Sale prices displayed at a grocery store in Buenos Aires on October 23, 2023.

Living with inflation

Coping with austerity and inflation – shoppers share strategies for coming months

26-12-2023 10:00 Faced with rising prices, slashed subsidies and a heavy devaluation, Argentines are preparing for a difficult year ahead by cancelling holiday reservations, stockpiling goods and protecting what’s left in their virtual wallets.

by Agustina Bordigoni

INFLATION

'Asado crisis': Meat woes as prices surge more than 30% in month

26-09-2023 14:39 The price of beef is becoming prohibitive for many families in Argentina, even the cheaper cuts. Prices soared by between 30% and 40% last month, with huge new hikes anticipated in October or November due to a decline in the supply.

by Agustina Bordigoni

Living with inflation

The Odyssey: Making it to the end of the month amid runaway prices

07-09-2023 12:56 Six Argentines share tips on living with inflation and coping with escalating prices. Recipes for trying to reach the end of the month are very varied, ranging from cutting back on car insurance, not buying clothes, wrapping up to save on gas or disposing of assets to cover debts. Many employees, including skilled workers, don’t manage to reach the end of the month, or at least not without taking on a little debt.

by Agustina Bordigoni