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IPS World News
ECONOMY-ARGENTINA: Growing Gap Between Haves and Have-Nots
By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 8 (IPS) - The gap separating haves and have-nots in Argentina widened significantly over the past year. While two decades ago members of the wealthiest stratum earned eight times more than their poorest compatriots, today the ratio is 25 to one.
Artemio Lopez, a sociologist who specialises in economic issues related to poverty, said it has been clearly demonstrated that the so-called ''trickle-down effect'' does not exist in Argentina, because even with economic growth and rising employment, society is becoming more and more inequitable.
''The debate in this country does not arise out of the poverty growing on the margins like in many countries of Latin America, but from the precarious manner in which thousands of impoverished families that historically belonged to the middle class are integrated'' into society, Lopez told IPS.
According to Lopez, with the frequently consulted research institute Equis, 60 percent of those living below the poverty line in Argentina are poor due to their low incomes.
That category includes workers with low salaries, such as teachers; retirees with below-subsistence level pensions; and thousands of workers who participate in state-subsidised employment plans and are paid an average of 200 dollars a month (compared to a basic consumer basket of 1,200 dollars a month for a typical family), self-employed and under-employed workers, and employees lacking social security benefits.
''Eighty percent of the new jobs created in 1998 were low quality,'' said Lopez, referring to the one percent drop in unemployment seen in the past year.
In Lopez' view, the increasingly skewed distribution of wealth cannot be attributed to an expansion of marginalised sectors, but to the complex manner in which Argentina's development model has been incorporating new workers into the labour force.
The National Institute of Statistics and Census reported Thursday that in spite of the drop in unemployment from 13.7 to 12.4 percent from October 1997 to October 1998, income distribution has become more skewed.
The wealthiest Argentinians earned 22 times more than the poorest in October 1997, and 25 times more in October 1998. In 1975, that ratio was 7.9 to one.
The richest stratum's share of wealth rose from 35.3 to 36.9 percent from October 1997 to October 1998, while the poorest sector's share shrunk from 1.6 to 1.5 percent. Government statistics indicate that the gap expanded since runaway inflation was reined in and economic growth began to accelerate.
In 1991, when then-economy minister Domingo Cavallo put his anti-inflation plan into effect, the richest Argentinians earned 15 times more than the poorest.
Today, Argentina has one of the lowest inflation rates in the world, 0.7 percent a year, and economic growth averaged five percent last year. Nevertheless, the gap dividing rich and poor continues to grow.
Argentina is no exception in the region. According to 'Facing Up to Inequality in Latin America', an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) study released in November, Latin America and Caribbean countries have the most unequal distribution of income in the world.
The report states that ''our best measures indicate that income distribution improved in the 1970s, worsened considerably in the 1980s, and has remained'' at highly skewed levels in the 1990s.
(END/IPS/tra-so/mv/mj/sw/99)