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20-02-2026
BUENOS AIRES: Diego Nacasio, 43, works full time as a salesman at a large hardware store in Florencio Varela, a city in the greater Buenos Aires area. He says he doesn’t need a calendar to know what day of the month it is. By the time his salary and that of his wife, who also works full time in a shop, run out, it is around the 15th.
From then on, they look for extra jobs, find things to sell, use their credit cards, and get small loans to pay for basics, including food, until the next paycheques arrive.
“I have never experienced anything like this,” Nacasio told Al Jazeera. “Over the past 25 years, we have worked hard, and our jobs allowed us to build a house from scratch, buy a car and give our 17-year-old son a decent life. Now, we have better jobs than we did then, and still cannot even afford food for the whole month.”
“Living on credit puts you in a very dangerous cycle. It’s very easy to fall behind with payments, and then it is a matter of chasing your own tail. Most people I know are in the same situation. We are living in a constant state of stress and anxiety, and it feels like there’s no way out.”
Nacasio’s story has become increasingly common in Argentina, where nearly half of the people say they are using savings, selling belongings or borrowing money from banks or relatives to cover basics, according to a report by Argentina Grande based on the latest official figures available. Another report, from Fundacion Pensar, found that 63 percent of Argentines have cut down on activities or services to make ends meet.
“The current situation in Argentina is extremely concerning. It is particularly worrying to see that even people who have one or several jobs are getting loans not to buy a house, a car or white goods (appliances), but to buy food,” Violeta Carrera Pereyra, sociologist and researcher at the Argentina Grande Institute and one of the authors of the report, told media.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who took office in December 2023, says his austerity economic plan, based on achieving fiscal balance while building up reserves of United States currency through drastic cuts to public spending, has revitalized the economy and lifted millions of people out of poverty. He is backed by the International Monetary Fund, which, despite Argentina’s record levels of foreign loans, projects an economic growth of four percent in 2026 and 2027 but a closer look at the figures shows a different, more sombre, picture.
While economic activity in Argentina has increased overall, growth has been uneven. In November 2025, the most recent month for which data is available, sectors such as banking and agriculture saw growth, but manufacturing and commerce experienced sharp declines, with many factories and shops closing due to falling demand. Consumption, particularly of food, has been falling, with a 12.5 percent drop reported by independent food retailers.
Then there’s inflation, a key variable that in Argentina needs to be kept at bay in order to access essential foreign credit.
While Milei’s shock economic plan managed to significantly reduce inflation from record-high figures when he first took office in late 2023, experts say his administration has taken some controversial measures to keep it low. This includes forcing salaries to remain stagnant and under the rate of inflation, and opening the country up to cheaper imports. These policies have left many without money to spend and forced thousands of factories and small businesses to close.
Many Argentines said that making ends meet has become nothing short of an obstacle course. Juggling multiple demanding jobs, selling used items such as clothing, borrowing from relatives, seeking shark loans and bargain hunting have become a regular part of daily life. (Int’l News Desk)
