Child benefits, food stamps and social policies ‘cannot be a stopgap’ measure

Some 8.6 million kids or 71 percent of children in the country are poor, according to a recent report by the Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia (ACIJ) detailing the poverty suffered by Argentina’s youngest citizens.

The data compiled by the NGO is terribly alarming. Other indicators, produced by other institutions, back up the concern. 

Some 34 percent of kids (4.2 million) in Argentina are growing up in conditions of extreme poverty, i.e. with the Basic Food Basket not covered, according to UNICEF. Data for 2024 shows a considerable increase on 2023 levels, when child poverty in the second half of the year was 58 percent and destitution 19 percent.

“In other words, in the first six months of the year over 1.5 million children became poor and almost 1.9 million destitute,” concludes the ACIJ report. 

“The lack of money for food generates insecurity, as understood as the involuntary reduction of a meal or the experience of hunger due to economic problems,” alerts the association. 

UNICEF warns that almost 3.3 million households, where over seven million children live, have stopped buying meat, milk and other dairy products.

Furthermore, as indicated by the ACIJ in its report, the UN children’s agency reports that at least six of each 10 households where children skip meals, the families are borrowing from relatives, stopped buying medicine and going to the doctor, all in order to buy food.”

With Argentina’s government committed to austerity and shrinking the size of the state, the ACIJ sounds a timely alarm that “public investment in policies ensuring child welfare, especially in contexts of vulnerability, is indispensable for integral development.”

“This document shows how the reduction of the budget negatively affects children and adolescents,” warns the institution in its report. 

 

A worrying trend

Experts say that child poverty, which is increasing, is one of Argentina’s main debts. Over the last five years, data shows a worrying trend. 

In 2018, 5.08 million children or 41.6 percent lived in conditions of poverty, according to data from the ACIJ. The following year these figures had increased to 6.41 million and 52.5 percent, rising again to 6.98 million or 57.2 percent living in poverty.

The next two years saw declines: to 54.9 percent (6.7 million) in 2021 and 51.5 percent in 2022 (6.29 million), before increases returned. Last year the situation deteriorated with child poverty at 57 percent, equivalent to 6.96 million children.

“Child poverty is a structural problem. Ever since the issue was measured in Argentina, which began after the return of democracy, child poverty never dropped below 30 percent,” said lawyer Francisco Rodríguez Abinal, who led the ACIJ report. 

“One of democracy’s greatest debts is the possibility of children growing up with sufficient money to gain access to their rights, which are such basic services as education and health. Those are constitutional rights which the Argentine state must guarantee,” says Rodríguez Abinal, who heads the ACIJ’s Social Rights of Children programme.

While child poverty has increased 40 percent in recent years, the responsibility should be shared among those who have governed the country – the floor has always been considerable.

The percentage of children living in extreme poverty has also grown in recent years, from 8.1 percent (989,699 children) in 2018, climbing to 13 percent (1.58 million) in 2019. The following year, it rose once again to 15.7 percent (1.91 million) children, before reaching 16.8 percent (2.05 million) in 2021. However, in 2022, poverty in general increased but extreme poverty went down to 13.2 percent or 1,612,842 children.

Last year extreme poverty among kids was 14.3 percent (1.74 million children) in the first half of the year, rising four points in the second half to 18.9 percent (2.3 million). 

In the first half of this year, following the devaluation of the peso, the percentage soared to 34.4 percent with 4,203,164 children living in extreme poverty, according to official data supplied by the INDEC national statistics bureau.

 

Social programmes in decline

Since taking office last December, President Javier Milei has slashed government spending in a bid to rebalance the budget. Devaluing the peso soon after taking office, inflation has slowed but the economy has entered recession.

Welfare packages remain in place for the impoverished. The Asignación Universal por Hijo (AUH) child benefit and Prestación Alimentar food stamps covered 77 percent of the Basic Food Basket in the first half of 2024, an improved percentage with regard to 2023. 

The AUH, which reaches over four million children, covers 46 percent of what a child needs to eat. If combined with the Prestación Alimentaria programme, it reaches 77 percent of the Basic Shopping-Basket for children aged up to 14.

“In 2021 they covered 49 and 98 percent respectively so they are still far from ensuring that children eat what’s necessary,” warns the ACIJ in its report.

How can we know whether the AUH and food stamps suffice to cover a minimum diet? The comparison of those values with the Basic Total and Food Shopping-Baskets is what defines poverty and destitution. Where, then, have the main cuts been observed?

“The funds expended by the state by mid-2024 (4,484,688 million pesos) are 26.3 percent less than by mid-2023 (6,082,245 million pesos),” concludes the ACIJ in its report. 

The Prestación Alimentar is 20 percent down on last year while the Education Secretariat’s budget is 43.7 percent less than in 2023, it warned. This occurs in a context of extremely high budget cuts for all programmes with the government’s objective to reduce public spending,” said Rodríguez Abinal, the ACIJ representative.

The NGO states:  “The AUH has a credit for 2024 of 3,321,574 million pesos, the highest since 2021 but the equivalent of 48 percent more than what was spent in 2023. It is one of the main budget lines directed to children – almost 35 percent of the funds destined for that group – and explains in large measure why the investment has not fallen in larger percentages.”

It continues: “The remaining cuts are explained by draining the programmes Conectar Igualdad, the Fondo Nacional de Incentivo Docente and Fortalecimiento Territorial y Acompañamiento de Organizaciones Educativas to boost education spending.”

The ACIJ observed that the government had spent nothing on activities of primary and secondary schooling, integral sex education, reinsertion into schools and career accompaniment. They have considerably cut the Becas Progresar scholarship programme (down 54.7 percent) and the budgets for the construction of kindergartens ( down 43 percent) and school infrastructure (down 63.5 percent).”

With regard to the health programmes destined to children such as the “1,000 Days” accompaniment scheme,  linked to nutrition and pregnancy, some changes are needed. Among them, explains the association: “The Abordaje del Curso de Vida public health programme has a budget one twelfth of that of 2021 and half of 2023. Apart from the underspending, during the first half of the year they only used 13 percent of the available funds (810 million of the 6.251 billion pesos).”

 

State policies

“With the policies of AUH or Prestación Alimentar the state transfers money to children via their families; that is to children growing up in poverty and who have difficulties, due to their family context and other reasons, in gaining access to their rights. One might think of that as a stopgap or the role of the state,” said a concerned Rodríguez Abinal.

“The state is obliged to ensure social protection, understood as income protection, as a form of ensuring the under-aged access to minimal conditions in life. That covers food and the possibility of buying classroom materials, clothing, etc. The family of the children is responsible for that but also the state. So in the final analysis I don’t think they are stopgap policies,” is the lawyer’s opinion, adding: “If they want to take the population out of poverty, they should carry out other kinds of measures.”

“The National Constitution and Law 26,601 (for the integral protection of the rights of children and adolescents) imply investing funds in the rights of minors. The National Budget Office has identified since 2021 a combo of budget programmes and activities which benefit this group, from social protection to health and education, among others, and including almost 40 programmes belonging to the Legislative Branch and the Executive divided among over 10 ministries,” explains ACIJ.

The NGO is vocal in sounding the alarm bell and is urging the Milei administration to do more to tackle child poverty.

“In a context of profound economic crisis, it is urgent that the Executive Branch adopt measures to increase the funds to guarantee the rights of this group so that they can grow up and live in decent conditions,” concluded the ACIJ report.