Latin American Economy & Business - April 2017 (ISSN 1741-7430)

According to official data released by the national statistics institute (Indec), 30.3% of the population was living in poverty in the second half of 2016, down from 32.2% in the second quarter of the same year. The numbers could be read as good news for President Mauricio Macri, who proclaimed “zero tolerance” of poverty when he took office in December 2015 and who has argued that his policies are bringing the country out of recession. Yet the Indec poverty numbers have been a political football for some years now, and are likely to remain subject to varying interpretations.