内容摘要：at the start and hold on to win the race for a fourth time overall.

at the start and hold on to win the race for a fourth time overall.

OS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina’s poverty rate jumped from almost 42% to 53% during the first six months ofs 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-yearhad 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 thethat has succeeded in pulling down the country’s monthly inflation from 25.5% last December to

Argentina’s inflation, now, is among the worst in the world.

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)

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)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’sthat 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 energyafter taking office.