By The Rio Times | Created at 2026-09-04 21:01:39 | Updated at 2026-09-04 23:35:25
5 hours ago
Economy · Argentina
Key Facts
- —The achievement Monthly inflation, 25.5% in December 2023 when Milei took office, was 2.1% in July 2026, INDEC says.
- —The bill More than nine in ten Argentine households carry some debt, a private survey found in August 2026.
- —The Senate math La Libertad Avanza holds only 19 of 72 Senate seats and needs governors’ votes to pass Milei’s central-bank bill.
- —The friction Courts ordered the government to fund universities in June 2026; a broad tax cut has been postponed to 2027.
- —The next vote Argentina’s midterms already happened in October 2025. The next election, in 2027, will choose Milei’s successor too.
- —The exchange rate The peso trades in a crawling band system; central bank reserves neared US$51 billion in August 2026.
Argentina did what no recent government managed: it made inflation boring. Making stability payable for the households living through it is proving much harder.
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How the inflation fight was won
Economy Minister Luis Caputo used deep spending cuts to force a budget surplus. There was no printing money to cover the gap.
Monthly inflation hit 25.5% in December 2023, the month Milei took office. That is according to INDEC, Argentina’s national statistics agency.
Much of that spike followed his own currency devaluation, days after his inauguration.
By July 2026, monthly inflation had fallen to 2.1%, with prices up 33.8% over the year, INDEC said. June 2026 was even lower, at 1.9%, the best reading in five years.
The debt behind the victory
More than 92% of Argentine households carry some form of debt. That is according to a report by the Institute of Social and Economic Statistics and Trends (IETSE), published August 24, 2026.
Of that debt, 62.5% of credit-card spending now goes toward food, not extras, IETSE found.
Roughly 44% of households now spend more than half their monthly income just paying down debt, IETSE found.
Bank-loan delinquency reached 12.8% in June 2026, up from 2.5% in October 2024. That is according to central-bank data analyzed by the Argentine Center for Political Economy, a research group known as CEPA.
Argentina’s delinquency rate is now the highest in Latin America, well above Brazil’s and Colombia’s, CEPA found.
The central-bank bill and the Senate math
Milei once promised to close Argentina’s central bank, the BCRA. Instead, the lower house passed a scaled-back version on August 26, 2026.
It would ban the bank from printing money to fund the government, Infobae reported.
La Libertad Avanza holds only 19 of the Senate’s 72 seats, even after gains in last year’s midterms. It needs governors’ votes to pass the bill, and they are expected to ask for transfers in return.
Courts, universities, and a tax reform on hold
Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled on June 25, 2026, that the government must fully apply a law funding public universities. The ruling shows that stabilizing the economy by decree has legal limits.
The government has also pushed a broader tax-cut package back to 2027, Argentine outlet Canal26 reported on August 28, 2026. Officials called it a matter of timing, not abandonment.
The exchange rate and reserves
The peso trades in a crawling band system, adjusted on January 2, 2026, that lets it move within pre-announced limits. The gap between the official rate and the informal “blue dollar” rate is the market’s daily verdict on the program.
Central bank reserves reached nearly US$51 billion by August 25, 2026, their highest level since 2019, Infobae reported. The bank’s benchmark interest rate stood at 29% that same month, according to Trading Economics.
The IMF, poverty, and activity
The International Monetary Fund, or IMF, lends struggling countries money in exchange for economic promises. Its US$20 billion program with Argentina requires ongoing budget surpluses and rebuilt reserves.
The IMF’s board completed a second review, plus a broader checkup, on May 21, 2026, releasing about US$1 billion more.
INDEC’s official poverty rate was 28.2% in the second half of 2025, covering 13.5 million people. A separate, private estimate from the Catholic University of Argentina put poverty near 31.7% in early 2026.
That figure is not an official INDEC number, only a university’s own survey.
Monthly economic activity rose 0.8% in June 2026 and 1.9% for the first half of the year, INDEC said. Private economists say it slipped again in July, an uneven pattern some call “saw-tooth.”
One bright spot is energy. A new pipeline is being built to carry crude from the Vaca Muerta shale fields to the Atlantic port of Bahía Blanca.
Exports through it are expected by late 2026, industry outlet ArgenPorts reported.
What already happened at the ballot box
Argentina’s midterm elections happened in October 2025, not this year or next. Milei’s La Libertad Avanza won about 41% of the national vote, well ahead of the main opposition, the Buenos Aires Herald reported.
The party also narrowly won Buenos Aires province, a traditional opposition stronghold, by under one percentage point. That came weeks after Milei’s original candidate there, José Luis Espert, quit the race.
Espert faced allegations of ties to a drug-trafficking case, Infobae reported in October 2025.
Córdoba province also favored Milei’s coalition. Its governor, Martín Llaryora, has since aligned more closely with the federal government on economic policy.
The next elections come in 2027, when Argentines choose a new Congress and decide whether Milei gets a second term.
What to watch
Three numbers matter most through 2027: monthly inflation’s floor, real wages, and the exchange-rate gap. A fourth is how much the Senate charges for its support on the central-bank bill.
None of this is a verdict on Milei’s economic program. It is simply what the debt, inflation, and activity data show so far, drawn from INDEC, the central bank, and independent researchers.
Argentina made inflation boring. Whether it can make the recovery feel real to the families still carrying that debt remains the open question through 2027.
Connected Coverage
Argentina Passes Central Bank Reform in Lower House as Milei Courts Governors for Senate
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Court Orders Milei’s Government to Apply the University Funding Law
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