Argentina's 'Happiness Revolution' leads to rising poverty numbers.

AutorGaudin, Andres

Six months after regaining control of the Argentine government and ending the social policies applied during the previous 13 years, the political right, led by President Mauricio Macri, has turned the South American country into a veritable volcano.

The opening of the economy, a currency devaluation in excess of 45%, and the passage by decree of legislation favoring large business conglomerates triggered a rapid rise in inflation and, consequently, a drop in consumption. In addition, the new government did away with price controls on public services--electricity, natural gas, gasoline, public transportation, and water--and ordered a wave of public sector layoffs. Private sector jobs are also being lost. The result is an explosive rise in the country's poverty numbers.

The situation is so dire that union leaders, who tend to place their own interests above those of the workers they supposedly represent, have begun to mobilize and demand that the government pass an "anti-layoff law." On April 29, they held a massive demonstration in Buenos Aires, the capital, with an estimated 350,000 participants.

On Dec. 10, Argentina became the first of the South American countries governed by progressive presidents to swing back to the right (NotiSur, Dec 4, 2015). With help from the major media outlets, Macri took over as president and immediately launched his so-called "Happiness Revolution" (NotiSur, Jan. 29, 2016). The result has been anything but. The effects of his program are all the more apparent when compared with conditions just across the Rio de la Plata, in tiny Uruguay, where a progressive government under constant attack from media corporations and the political right continues, nevertheless, to apply precisely the kind of policies that Macri buried in Argentina. Uruguay's low poverty, unemployment, and inflation numbers speak for themselves. In the 11 years since the left-wing Frente Amplio took power, in 2005, the poverty level, for example, has dropped from 39.9% to 6.4%, and just 0.2% of Uruguayan households live in extreme poverty.

On April 1, the Observatorio de la Deuda Social Argentina (ODSA), a research arm of the Universidad Catolica Argentina (UCA)--where Macri earned a degree in civil engineering--issued a report suggesting that poverty and destitution levels rose sharply in just the few months since the new administration took office. The ODSA study estimated that the rate of destitution rose from 5.3% at the end of 2015 to 6.9%...

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