Poverty in Argentina has continued to rise for a long time now in spite of political promises and a massive emergency loan from the IMF.

The disabled in Argentina have been taking an especially hard hit amid austerity requirements attached to the IMF’s recent $56 billion loan to the country.

The Argentinian economy is currently in a bad place and it doesn’t appear that things will get better in the near future. As investor confidence in emerging markets fell last year, Argentina was forced to look to the IMF for an emergency loan. While the government has managed to continue spending on social programs, the austerity measures currently employed are squeezing many of Argentina’s most economically vulnerable people. As the situation worsens, more people are joining the ranks of the Argentinian poor as they lose their jobs and have too few resources to take care of themselves. This dynamic is forcing more Argentinians onto the street as they have to choose between shelter and food. The poverty rate in Argentina went up 6% in 2018, leaving the rate at almost one in three.

Despite the $56 billion loan that Argentina took from the IMF last year, public debt has gone up. The same can be said for the poverty rate and unemployment, both of which have gone up significantly since the loan was approved. At the same time, the Argentine economy lost 5.8% of its GDP as of the end of the first quarter of 2019. The 12-month inflation rate is currently around 57%, feeding the country’s economic crisis even further