INDEC: “a person who declares that he earns more than 197 pesos will not be considered poor”

 

City of Buenos Aires, September 28, 2011

 

The director of the Permanent Household Survey of the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC), Claudio Comari, caused controversy by announcing his new criterion for the consideration of poverty.

On the radio, said that “a person who earns 197 pesos [45 dollars] will not be considered poor, but if you earn above that, it will be considered non-poor.” The controversy is that it was not made clear whether the figure corresponded to the monthly, weekly or daily earnings.

Meanwhile, he criticized the disclosures of other consultants close to the government. “Artemio Lopez and Enrique Martinez do not have the technical competence to discuss the issue of poverty,” he said.

The company Equis had revealed that poverty reduction would have been significantly less than that indicated by the Institute, reaching 16% of the population, while the extreme poverty stood at 5.5%.