Argentine Catholic University determined the poverty level in Argentina for 2016. It was found that the percentage of people living under the poverty line increased from 29 percent in January 2016 to 32.6 percent in April 2016. This means that 13 million Argentinians are currently living in real poverty. Therefore, necessary steps need to be taken to reduce poverty now that winter is coming.
Marci, president of Argentina, announced his plan to provide aid to people living in the poorest regions of the country. The reason for this is the increasing poverty rates from past months that is due to high inflation in the country.
One of the ways that the government is fighting poverty is by increasing the budget of the Food Security Program from 2.2 billion Argentine Pesos to 3 billion Argentine Pesos this year. Another step that they are taking is to increase the funds for dining halls in schools and soup kitchens.
Families that need help to buy food are offered a credit of up to 150 pesos a month, but it turned out that the fund did not reach all regions in the country. The province of Tucuman received 4.3 billion Argentine Pesos in subsidies last year, and in the province of Cordoba only some municipalities received subsidies. In the province of San Luis, no one received any subsidies.
Until now, Argentina Trabaja Plan has 200,000 people receiving benefits, Ellas Hacen Plan has an increase of 20% funding, and the the soup kitchens have also provided much aid.
The Ministry of Social Development is preparing a Zero Poverty Plan in order to help over 100 villages and towns that contain 5000 inhabitants or less. The goal is to improve their infrastructure and services. Most of these cities are located in the northern part of Argentina, which were highly affected by the floods of the past month. There is another plan that provides 120.000 bags filled with basic products such as flour, oil sugar etc. These bags are sent out to 11 provinces.
Some schools did not get any help last year, so the new plan specifies that there will be financial support to those schools who need it. The schools are located in the province of Buenos Aires and 10 other provinces. Just in the province of Buenos Aires, this financial support will benefit 1.5 million children!
