Argentina’s poverty rate is climbing again after more than a year of major declines.

New official figures from Argentina’s national statistics agency, INDEC, show that 32.3% of the population was living below the poverty line during the first half of 2026, up from 28.2% during the second half of 2025. Extreme poverty also increased from 6.3% to 7.5%.

That means approximately 9.7 million people across the 31 major urban areas measured by INDEC were living in poverty.

Children Are Being Hit the Hardest

Perhaps the most striking number involves Argentina’s youngest residents.

Among children aged 14 and younger, 44.5% are now living below the poverty line, while 10.8% are living in extreme poverty.

Young adults are also struggling, with poverty reaching 36.9% among Argentinians between the ages of 15 and 29.

A Reversal After a Dramatic Decline

The new numbers represent a setback for President Javier Milei’s government.

Poverty had surged to 52.9% in the first half of 2024, shortly after Milei took office amid a major devaluation and spending cuts. It subsequently fell sharply as inflation slowed and real incomes recovered, reaching 28.2% in the second half of 2025 — its lowest level since 2018.

The latest figures show that some of that progress has now reversed.

However, the current 32.3% poverty rate remains dramatically below the 52.9% level recorded in early 2024. Argentina’s government has emphasized that longer-term decline while describing the latest increase as temporary.

Why Is Poverty Rising Again?

One major problem is that household incomes have struggled to keep pace with the cost of basic necessities.

During the first half of 2026, income per person increased by about 11.5%, while the cost of the goods and services used to calculate Argentina’s poverty line increased by nearly 20%.

Unemployment also reached 7.9% in the second quarter, its highest level since 2021. Economists have additionally pointed to insecure and informal employment as a major challenge for Argentine families.

Argentina has made significant progress bringing down the runaway inflation that dominated the country’s economy in recent years.

The challenge now is different: turning that stabilization into stronger wages, better jobs and improvements that families can actually feel.

With nearly one in three Argentinians — and almost half of the country’s children — living in poverty, the latest numbers show that Argentina’s economic recovery remains far from complete.