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VERSIÓN ESPAÑOL
¿Menos pobres o pobres más pobres?
La caída continua de las cifras de pobreza anunciada de manera tan orgullosa por el presidente Néstor Kirchner el jueves con su colega ecuatoriano Rafael Correa de visita en el país a su lado se expone inevitablemente a las mismas dudas que la polémica fuente de estas cifras: el INDEC. Y con razón, ya que se sabe lamentablemente que los pobres son los más afectados por la inflación, rubro en el cual se ha dado la más flagrante manipulación de datos por parte del INDEC en el transcurso del año: por alardeo electoral, según algunos, y a fin de timar a quienes invierten en bonos indexados de la deuda, según otros. Sin embargo, paradójicamente, la inflación podría también ser el motivo para hacer que los datos de descenso de la pobreza sean más creíbles, al ser esta inflación, que el gobierno se muestra reacio a reconocer, reflejo directo de la demanda que aumenta rápidamente y, por ende, de la prosperidad.
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The continuing fall in the poverty data so proudly announced by President Néstor Kirchner on Thursday with his visiting Ecuador colleague Rafael Correa at his side is inevitably exposed to the same doubts as the controversial source of the figures: namely, INDEC statistics bureau. And with reason because the poor are notoriously the worst hit by inflation, where the most flagrant INDEC manipulation of the data has occurred in the course of this year — for the sake of electoral preening, according to some, and in order to cheat all those investing in index-linked debt bonds, according to others. Yet paradoxically, inflation could also be a reason to lend some credence to the data concerning poverty reduction because this inflation to which the government seems so reluctant to admit is also a direct reflection of surging demand and hence prosperity.
A more detailed analysis of the poverty figures should incline us to steer clear of the two extremes of either taking the government’s figures at face value or assuming them to be blatant INDEC fabrications. Certainly the glaring contradiction of the inflation registered in the hinterland being twice as high as in and around Buenos Aires is not directly reflected in the poverty figures — thus Greater Buenos Aires is the only part of the country other than the impoverished northern provinces (36-41 percent) to be above the national average of 23 percent below the poverty line at 25 percent (which could also reflect the tendency of the poor from every province, not to mention some neighbouring countries, to flock to Buenos Aires). Furthermore, the INDEC manipulation of the inflation figures has been least successful with food prices, which affect the poor most directly. If Kirchner boasts of poverty having fallen from 60 to 23 percent under his presidency (the 2003 figure was actually 54 percent), it is also true that employment levels, wages and hours worked have all risen dramatically in the last four years, increasing inflationary pressures but also reducing poverty. Even allowing for all distortions, the true poverty figure is probably no higher than 28 percent — Kirchner can thus still claim to have halved poverty levels.
Having said this, having over eight million below the poverty line (including nearly three million destitute) is a blemish on a modern society — the more so, because the combination of the digital gap and the education crisis leaves this impoverished minority more excluded than ever.
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