Every week in Argentina, pensioners protest against President Milei’s austerity policies. The police react harshly.
The police quickly block the access roads to the square in front of the Argentine Congress. “Ohoho, the dangerous pensioners are coming,” says a man with a cane and thinning hair. Water cannons fire up, dozens of police officers in black uniforms, helmets and protective shields stand in rows.
Around a hundred pensioners are standing on the sidewalk, many wearing protective goggles for fear of pepper spray, which the police have already used several times during pensioner protests.
The pensioners want to do a lap around the Congress building, like every week, in protest against meager pensions and the austerity policies of President Javier Milei. “And every time the police show up,” says Raúl Roverano, a retired engineer. “Who would have thought? We pensioners seem to be quite a nuisance.” Roverano belongs to the group “Jubilados Insurgentes”, the “insurgent pensioners”.
President Milei is pursuing tough austerity measures
Argentine President Javier Milei announced it during the election campaign: He wanted to use a chainsaw to cut government spending by six percent of the national budget. And Milei keeps his word: public construction contracts, culture, education, savings are being made everywhere.
Pensioners have been hit particularly hard: the purchasing power of pensions has fallen by almost 30 percent since Milei took office in December. The minimum pension is the equivalent of around 250 Swiss francs, based on European living costs. A liter of milk costs around 1.20 CHF, and a one-room apartment in Buenos Aires doesn’t cost less than 450 francs. Some medications are more expensive than in the USA. At least three out of ten pensioners live below the poverty line.
A law that had already been passed by parliament was supposed to increase the minimum pension by the equivalent of 16 francs a month – but President Milei vetoed it. His goal is a balanced budget: “The financial deficit was the result of first thinking about spending and then how to finance it. We do it differently.”
Lorenzo Sigaut Gravina from the economic consulting firm Equilibra says: From a financial policy perspective, the presidential veto is understandable. “It may be that savings could have been made elsewhere. But, given the size of the deficit, it is difficult not to make some cuts everywhere. And that also affects pensions.”
Pensioners suffer from austerity
Public finances versus social hardship – a controversial decision. Many pensioners do not have enough to eat and can no longer afford their medication. Even the Pope is now getting involved; at a congress in Rome he said in relation to the pensioner protests in Argentina: “The government has taken a position: instead of acting in a socially just manner, it has bought pepper spray.”
For the first time since taking office in December 2023, Milei’s approval ratings fell in September due to the economic crisis and after his veto on pension adjustments. Although he still has an approval rating of 46 percent, more than 50 percent now rate his government as “bad” or “very bad.”
“The president probably thought that people didn’t care about us pensioners,” says Raúl Roverano, the retired engineer. “But with every protest there are more of us.” The conflict over pensions in Argentina is far from over.