According to CEPAL, Argentina is the fifth country with the lowest poverty in the region

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) published last month Social panorama of Latin America, in which he compares the situation of poverty and extreme poverty In the region.

The report distinguishes official measures from each country another one more homogeneous that allows comparison among them, because the methodology and elements taken into account by the governments of the continent are very diverse.

As with other variables, Latin American countries have a marked heterogeneity in levels of poverty and extreme poverty. Only Two countries – Chile and Uruguay – have a poverty rate below 15% ", says ECLAC.

Argentina, whose poverty measures were unreliable at the intervention of the INDEC statistical entity from 2007, including ceased to disclose this indicator between 2014 and 2015, when he eliminated reports from the Permanent Household Survey, before the scandalous violation of private measures.

With the standardization of Argentine statistics, ECLAC began to rely on reliable data for the regional comparison. So he detected that the Argentina ranks fifth in one Ranking of poverty in Latin America, with a 18.7% of the population (Data 2017) who can not access a whole basket of basic goods and services.

They go beyond Argentina, in terms of eradicating poverty, Uruguay (2.7% of poverty), Chile (10.7%)Costa Rica (15.1%) and Panama (16.7%).

Countries with the lowest poverty are also those of less extreme poverty. "The Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay they have rates of extreme poverty by less than 5%; Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic are between 5% and 10%, while the rest of the countries have extreme poverty rates above 10% " , detailed UN body dependent.

ECLAC clarified that the figures of its study They differ from the officials from different countries because they "present different accents therefore, in its calculation, different criteria are adopted ", such as those used for property selection basic food and non-food baskets, the the prices used to value these badets or deflators update the lines in time, among others.

"The figures of ECLAC are intended to think in the most comparable way possible the regional reality, while national figures seek to respond in the best possible way to the realities of the country, "he added.

It also explains the different results that the agency takes into account the rent charged by the use of the own housing service.

"Despite these differences, the variations in the short and medium term they are consistent between the two measureswhich reinforces the validity of each as an appropriate instrument for the proposed objectives, "he said.

As a region in general, Argentina has shown a decline in poverty from 2002, with the "boom" of raw materials. The biggest contribution to this trend coverage of the pension system and the subsidy scheme targeting the population with the least resources.

ECLAC explained that "in the ArgentinaCosta Rica and Peru, pensions and transfers they were the main source of revenue increase poor households. In all three countries, the increase is due more to increase of recipients the increase in the average amount of collections, which even fell in Peru in the badyzed period ".

But in recent years, starting in 2012, the Argentina exposed " Moderate decline in poverty based almost exclusively on improvement in average income houses ".

Chile is among the countries that realized greater poverty reduction in the period 2012-2017, mainly because the Labor income is the source that has increased the most in households with fewer resources.

In the case of Uruguay "the transfers received by poor households more or less important than the increase in income from work ", explained the study, although" the change in average income was the dominant effect "for poverty to be reduced more rapidly 5% per year or mores- in the last five years.

"With regard to Chile, the level of poverty observed a few decades ago made it incomparable with Argentina, it seemed that we watched from the top of Aconcagua. Both in Chile and Uruguay have implemented policies improvement of income distribution and, most importantly, it does not work big factory of poverty that is inflation"How did he Víctor Beker, director of the Center for Studies of the New Economy (CENE) of the University of Belgrano.

Inequality and poverty are not the same

ECLAC warns that "the Inequality is a historical and structural feature companies Latin America and the Caribbean maintained and replicated even in times of economic growth and prosperity ", even though he acknowledges that" the income inequality between households and individuals it has been reduced significantly in the region since the beginning of the decade 2000"

To measure inequalities, the Gini coefficient, an indicator that measures income in a country: how much the closer you are to 0, the greater is the equality, while closer to 1 means greater inequality. Argentina and Uruguay posted the best equal indices, with 0.39; Chile is in an intermediate state for the region, with 0.45.

"It is true that in Latin American countries, there is a great inequality. But inequality and poverty are two different things. That's more, everything would indicate that he's going in opposite directions, according to the experience observed in many developing countries, such as China, India and even Chile. Paradoxically, they are accompanied: not only they have reduces the poverty coefficient, but also they did it with more inequality ", he told him Beker a Infobae.

"Then you have to ask yourself what is the goal Reduce poverty or inequality? When poverty goes down, inequality increases, they are not synonymous and do not go in the same direction"he added.

Poverty in Argentina has increased in 2018

Consequently decline in the level of economic activity Argentina from the second quarter of 2018, the rate of poverty and indigence in the country have increased and returned to the ranges not seen in a decade.

"The The inflation process in Argentina is extremely perversebecause not only is it high and About 50% annual, otherwise driven by the baskets of poverty and indigence, which have risen more than the average price of the economy ", said Beker, also former head of economic statistics at INDEC.

"Inflation is the most pernicious on vulnerable sectors, by the rise of exchange rate and its impact on mbad consumer goods, and the rise in prices, which also implies reduction of subsidies, more necessary for low-income sectors, "he added.

At the end of 2017, a year where Argentina's GDP grew by 2.9%, the rate of INDEC poverty reaches 25.7% of the population and indigence, 4.8 percent. According to Observatory of social debt during this period, poverty reached 28.2% and poverty, 5.7%.

A study by UCA corresponding to the third quarter of 2018 has already recognized poverty at 33.6% – more than 13 million people in this state – and in this universe, 6.1% were without resources. These are the highest rates of the decade, according to the Social Debt Observatory database.

"We are wondering how did the social conflict not advance. Is there a fundamental difference with what happened, for example, in the 90s. The then president, Carlos Menem, said: "We operated without anesthesia ". And now, a lot of anesthesia is applied: with an increase of welfarebecause the intended games push the rest more. This has a significant moribund effect. "In this sense, the Budget 2019 is considering an increase of 29% for social badistance itemsand 60% for food purchase programs, above expected inflation, of 23% per year.