{"id":159,"date":"2016-10-06T07:20:01","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T07:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/?p=159"},"modified":"2016-10-06T07:20:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T07:20:01","slug":"argentina-discloses-poverty-data-after-three-year-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/2016\/10\/06\/argentina-discloses-poverty-data-after-three-year-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Argentina discloses poverty data after three-year gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al Jazeera: <\/strong>Buenos Aires –<\/strong> Argentina’s government has released poverty figures for the first time in three years, revealing that nearly a third of the population is living below the breadline.<\/p>\n

The news came as a shock as the previous administration of Cristina Kirchner had stopped measuring poverty rates more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

In Argentina, you are officially poor if your family of four has less than $800 a month to live on.<\/p>\n

The new statistics underscore the difficulty of achieving President Mauricio Macri’s goal of “zero poverty”.<\/p>\n

“What we are starting to have in Argentina are real statistics. What we had until a few months ago was a fiction with no reality. It was a manipulation,” Macri said.<\/p>\n

“We believe this is our start point because this is the reality of Argentina. Without controls, without financial problems with the rest of the world, without distortions.<\/p>\n

“This is our reality and I want to be evaluated on whether or not I was able to reduce poverty from now on.”<\/p>\n

Worsening situation<\/h2>\n

In recent months, the economic situation has worsened in Argentina since the new government tried to stimulate the economy by devaluating the national currency and lifting subsidies.<\/p>\n

The measures have generated inflation, which in turn has eroded people’s purchasing power.<\/p>\n

“We used to take public transport and now we are only using it when its necessary,” said Blanca Duarte, a resident of the Rodrigo Bueno slum in Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n

“Going to the supermarket is scary. I see the situation has been deteriorating. People are struggling to make it to the end of the month.”<\/p>\n

And that is why in recent months more and more people have been taking to the streets, demanding the government look their way.<\/p>\n

\u00a8We are here because we need better education, health, and jobs but this is a government that rules for the rich,”\u00a0Claudio Arevalo, a labour union leader, told a rally in Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n

“They don’t care about the workers and our needs. We need salary raises to cope with the current situation.”<\/p>\n

Argentina’s government says it is trying to put the country’s economy in order after years of largesse during the previous administration.<\/p>\n

However, the poverty figures are alarming, suggesting that real and substantial challenges remain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al Jazeera: Buenos Aires – Argentina’s government has released poverty figures for the first time in three years, revealing that nearly a third of the population is living below the breadline. The news came as a shock as the previous administration of Cristina Kirchner had stopped measuring poverty rates more than a decade ago. In Argentina, you are officially poor… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}