Overview

• More than 21% of employed people—about 4.5 million—cannot afford the basic consumption basket, according to IERAL researchers Laura Caullo and Federico Belich.
• Poverty affects 58.9% of the unemployed, 35.2% of the inactive population, and 45.4% of children under 14, highlighting concentrated vulnerability.
• Risk varies sharply by job status: 40.5% of unregistered self-employed and 37.5% of informal salaried workers are poor, versus 12.3% of registered independents and 9.7% of formal employees.
• Provinces with higher labor informality—Tucumán, San Juan, Salta, Santiago del Estero and Formosa—concentrate larger shares of working poor.
• The study urges technical training, incentives for formal hiring, and a shift toward higher value-added activities, noting that AUH reduces indigence but often does not lift households out of poverty.