Argentina's poverty rate spikes in first 6 months of President Milei's shock therapy

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina's poverty rate jumped from almost 42% to 53% during the first six months of Javier Milei' s presidency, the statistics agency reported Thursday, a steep rise reflecting the pain of the country's most intense austerity program in recent memory.

The government's finding that Argentina's half-year poverty rate in 2024 had surged to its highest level since 2003, when the country was reeling from a catastrophic foreign debt default and currency devaluation, marks a setback for the far-right economist. So far, foreign investors and the International Monetary Fund — to which Argentina owes $43 billion — have cheered his controversial fiscal shock therapy that has succeeded in pulling down the country's monthly inflation from 25.5% last December to 4.2% in recent months.

Argentina’s inflation, now running at more than 230% annually, is among the worst in the world.

Bracing for negative news hours before the poverty report's release, Milei's spokesperson sought to deflect the blow in a lengthy press conference.

“The government inherited a disastrous situation,” Manuel Adorni told reporters, lambasting the decades of unbridled spending under Milei's left-leaning Peronist predecessors that generated chronic inflation. “They left us on the brink of being a country with essentially all of its inhabitants poor.”

Unlike previous populist governments that kept consumer spending high at the cost of a massive budget deficit, Milei dismantled price controls, cut subsidies on energy and transport and devalued the peso by 54% in December after taking office.

The austerity measures and deregulation have marked a brutal contraction in spending power and dragged the economy deep into recession.

A political outsider who made fighting Argentina’s dizzying inflation his flagship campaign promise, Milei is betting that if his government can keep prices falling, growth will return and fuel a miraculous recovery.

Milei’s austerity measures have helped drive down the yearly inflation rate from a peak of almost 300% in April. His government’s budget proposal expects annual inflation to drop to 122.9% by the end of the year.

But the months ahead will be tricky, economists say. After its initial decline, monthly inflation has been stuck around 4% since July. Milei’s 2025 budget proposal aims for a fiscal surplus of over 1.3% of the country’s annual economic output. That would require further spending cuts as calls to restart frozen public works and boost pensions and wages grow louder.

Of the millions who can’t clear Argentina’s official poverty level of about $950 a month in local currency for a family of four, even more have tumbled into destitution. Thursday’s poverty report showed that Argentina’s extreme poverty rate had shot up to 18.1% during Milei’s first six months as president from 11.9% in the last half of 2023.

Among those affected is 32-year-old Rocío Costa, who said the rapidly rising prices have sapped her family’s meager income of just over $400 a month. Comforts like hair-dye, soft drinks and pizza had long been out of reach, but in July she realized she didn’t have enough money to both buy diapers for her four-month-old and put dinner on the table for her family of five.

“There wasn’t even a package of noodles, there was nothing,” Costa said from her home in the capital of Buenos Aires. “The Milei government is killing me.”

Desperate, Costa turned to friends and volunteers and eventually secured diapers at a social assistance center and $1 second-hand sneakers for her daughter at a local parish.

“We are plugging the holes,” she said.

The runaway inflation — shocking even for Argentines who lived through years of annual inflation averaging above 50% — has forced middle-class Argentines to cut back on spending and drain their savings.

The economy has contracted 3% so far this year. Government surveys reveal that both Argentina’s vast informal jobs market and formal workforce have hemorrhaged hundreds of thousands of jobs since Milei took office.

That has put more of Argentina’s once-robust middle class in danger of sliding into poverty.

“I’m part of Argentina’s lost middle class,” said 48-year-old Leonardo Constantino. Before he lost his job six years ago, he had a regular paycheck working in restaurants and played padel, the popular racket sport, with friends whenever he could.

Finding a new job has never been harder. “It kept getting worse,” he said.

Now a weekend bouncer earning just $155 a month, he said he couldn’t afford basic household items without help from the Buenos Aires municipality.

Some months ago, he gave up his favorite hobby. The $6 padel court fee had become too much.

For decades low-paid Argentines have navigated their upside-down economy by padding their meager incomes with government cash transfers and generous subsidies that reduced the cost of utilities, food and transport.

But utilities bills jumped over 200% for many after Milei scrapped the subsidies to trim the deficit.

For Sofia Gonzalez Figueroa, a 36-year-old single mother who last year paid $10 a month for electricity, the pain of Milei’s austerity was instantaneous. Her utilities bill skyrocketed by 830%.

Gonzalez Figueroa barters clothes for shampoo and other essentials, and uses the government’s family welfare program to buy groceries.

“It is not much, but it helps me,” she said.

Those who don’t qualify for assistance have increasingly turned to side hustles to pay utilities bills. Emilce Correa, who works 42 hours a week as a lab technician at a public hospital, picks up all extra shifts she can at far-flung medical centers. “By the middle of the month, I already have nothing,” she said.

Others have joined the growing legions of workers offering to wash car windows at red lights and mining dumpsters for sustenance.

Débora Galluccio, a 48-year-old legal expert who lost her job in Congress during the previous administration, went from dining in restaurants to soup kitchens in less than a year.

“It’s hard, but we manage as best we can,” Galluccio said, sipping stew provided by a local nonprofit. She said she feels lucky to live in an apartment that her partner inherited. Milei’s move to relax rent-control regulations has priced most working-class Argentines out of the real estate market.

Despite it all, Galluccio — like many Argentines — seems to have accepted that the immediate pain of Milei’s economic reforms is an inevitable step toward prosperity.

Fed up with generations of crises under left-wing populists, Galluccio is giving the chainsaw-wielding radical a shot.

“In eight months he can’t fix the mess they made in 20 years,” she said.

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Felipe reaches through the door of a bakery where his parents Walter and Evelyn wait to take home discarded baked goods that the shop didn't sell in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Children wait for a free, cooked meal at a soup kitchen on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A girl and her mother collect baked goods outside a bakery that gives away what they don't sell by the end of the day, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A little girl clutches her pot outside a soup kitchen where she waits in line for her turn to collect a free, cooked meal to take home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Trash pickers Jose Oman Toledo and Hernan Cardozo eat lunch after cooking for a large group of fellow workers at the recycling plant where they retrieve sellable items in Lujan, Argentina, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Veronica Vera, center, sells bread on the sidewalk in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Tobias sits on the sidewalk next to public trash containers as his mother Elena Gonzeva sells handkerchiefs in the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

People get off the train, the cost of which is rising, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

An elderly man pauses to smoke a cigarette as he sifts through garbage at a landfill in search of materials to sell in Lujan, Argentina, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A child eats a free, hot meal on the curb of a soup kitchen on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Lab tech Emilce Correa Louzao, who works at the state pediatric Hospital Garrahan, protests at the Heath Ministry demanding a salary raise in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Weekend security guard Leonardo Constantino stops to pose for a portrait as he walks home with food for his family that he received from a soup kitchen in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Street vendor Miriam Sidimarco and her daughter Tiziana sit on a door's stoop, to eat a free, cooked meal near the soup kitchen where they received it on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Debora Paola Galluccio eats her one meal of the day from a community kitchen next to her partner Marcelo Díaz in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Cintia Barros' son Alessandre sleeps on the ground as she begs on a street corner sidewalk in downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Eduardo Escoz prays at a church on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. Escoz said he pays about $50 a month for a room that he shares with two other people. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Sofia Gonzalez Figueroa and her son Emanuel stand in line outside a soup kitchen for a free, hot meal, where they walked to from home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Rocio Costa watches her daughter Francesca try on shoes at a second-hand clothing fair alongside her other children Almendra and Tiziano in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Residential buildings are covered in color in Barrio 31, a working poor neighborhood in downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Children eat a free, cooked meal outside a soup kitchen on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — Alabama used nitrogen gas Thursday to execute a man convicted of killing three people in back-to-back workplace shootings, the second time the method that has generated debate about its humaneness has been used in the country

Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. local time at a south Alabama prison. He shook and trembled on the gurney for about two minutes with his body at times pulling against the restraints. That was followed by about six minutes of periodic gulping breaths before he became still.

Miller was convicted of killing three men — Lee Holdbrooks, Christopher Scott Yancy and Terry Jarvis — in 1999 and the state had previously attempted to execute him by lethal injection in 2022.

“I didn't do anything to be in here,” Miller said in his final words that were at times muffled by the blue-rimmed gas mask that covered his face from forehead to chin. However, witnesses at the trial had expressed no doubt about his guilt, describing Miller shooting the three men.

At the execution, Miller also asked his family and friends to “take care” of someone but it was not clear whose name he said.

Miller was one of five inmates put to death in the span of one week, an unusually high number that defies a yearslong trend of decline in the use of the death penalty in the U.S.

“Tonight, justice was finally served for these three victims through the execution method elected by the inmate," Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. “His acts were not that of insanity, but pure evil. Three families were forever changed by his heinous crimes, and I pray that they can find comfort all these years later.”

Family members of the three victims did not witness the execution and did not issue a statement to be read to reporters, state officials said.

The execution was the second to use the new method Alabama first employed in January, when Kenneth Smith was put to death. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the inmate’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen.

Alabama officials and advocates have argued over whether Smith suffered an unconstitutional level of pain during his execution after he shook in seizure-like spasms for several minutes, at times rocking the gurney. Smith then gasped for breath for several minutes. The shaking exhibited by Miller was similar to what was seen at the first nitrogen gas execution but did not seem as long or as violent.

Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Q. Hamm said the shaking movements were anticipated.

“Just like in Smith we talked about there is going to be involuntarily body movements as the body is depleted of oxygen. So that was nothing we did not expect,” Hamm said.

Hamm said the nitrogen gas flowed for 15 minutes during the execution.

“Everything went according to plan and according to our protocol,” he said.

A delivery truck driver, Miller was convicted of capital murder for the Aug. 5, 1999, shootings that claimed three lives and shocked the city of Pelham, a suburban city just south of Birmingham.

Police say that early that morning, Miller entered Ferguson Enterprises and fatally shot two co-workers: Holdbrooks, 32, and Yancy, 28. He then drove 5 miles (8 kilometers) away to Post Airgas, where he had previously worked, and shot Jarvis, 39. Trial testimony indicated that Miller was paranoid and believed his co-workers had been gossiping about him.

“You’ve been spreading rumors about me,” a witness described Miller as saying before he opened fire. All three men were shot multiple times.

Miller had initially pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but later withdrew the plea. A psychiatrist hired by the defense said that Miller was mentally ill but his condition wasn’t severe enough to use as a basis for an insanity defense, according to court documents. Jurors convicted Miller after 20 minutes of deliberation and recommended by a vote of 10-2 that he receive the death penalty.

In 2022, the state called off the previous attempt to execute Miller after being unable to connect an IV line to the 351-pound (159-kilogram) inmate. Miller had initially challenged the nitrogen gas protocol but dropped his lawsuit after reaching an undisclosed settlement with the state.

Hamm said the state did not change the protocol. Miller, among other things, had requested to be given a sedative. Hamm declined to say if Miller was given a sedative and referred questions about the settlement to Miller’s attorneys.

Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, and other death penalty opponents hold a demonstration outside the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, asking the state to call off the scheduled execution of Alan Miller in what would be the nation's second execution using nitrogen gas. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)

FILE - Officials escort murder suspect Alan Eugene Miller away from the Pelham City Jail in Alabama, Aug. 5, 1999. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)

FILE - This undated photograph provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Alan Eugene Miller, who was convicted of capital murder in a workplace shooting rampage that killed three men in 1999. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP, File)