Study: Argentina has lowest minimum wage in dollars in Latin America

The promise made by President Javier Milei during the 2023 election campaign – that by 2025, wages measured in dollars would “soar” – has not come to pass. Instead, workers’ incomes in Argentina have fallen to levels not seen in decades.

According to analysts in a report by the Latin American Centre for Geopolitical Strategy (CELAG) think tank, seen by the Noticias Argentinas agency, the government has used wages as “an anchor for fiscal adjustment and for cooling inflation”.

According to the CELAG report, as of November 2025, Argentina has the lowest minimum wage in the region.

At US$225 per month, the country sits at the bottom of the regional ranking, below Bolivia (US$395) and Paraguay (US$411). Costa Rica (US$729), Uruguay (US$593) and Chile (US$567) top the list.

The deterioration is not only evident in the regional comparison, but also in terms of domestic purchasing power. A report by the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) warned that Argentina's minimum, Living and Mobile Wage (SMVM) accumulated a 34 percent loss of purchasing power between November 2023 and September 2025.

The sharpest falls were recorded in December 2023 (down 15 percent) and January 2024 (down 17 percent). As a result, the real minimum wage in September 2025 “fell below its 2001 level, prior to the collapse of the convertibility regime,” concluded the UBA faculty.

The decline extends beyond the minimum wage. According to data from the INDEC national statistics, wages for registered workers continued to lag behind inflation in September.

While inflation for the month reached 2.1 percent, wages in the registered private sector rose by only 1.4 percent, and public-sector wages by 1.1 percent.

CELAG’s report on inequality more broadly is equally stark: two-thirds of Argentines earn below the national average, while 77 percent of households have a per-capita income of less than 800,000 pesos (around US$542).

– TIMES/NA