On Monday September 2, the President of Argentina, radical right-winger Javier Milei, vetoed a law that had already passed the first level of the Legislature, and that sought to increase pensions and retirement benefits given the rampant inflation in the country.
Milei, who has implemented significant budget cuts, affirmed that he decided to veto the law because if it were to be implemented, the fiscal accounts would suffer an imbalance, which would lead to the need to increase taxes or increase the public debt.
The law seeks an 8.1% increase in the pensions received by pensioners from the State, as well as a new way to update the monetary needs of pensioners according to the loss of purchasing power they suffer as part of the long-lived economic crisis. In this sense, it was proposed that the payment of pensions be automatically updated according to monthly inflation.
According to several testimonies, the current pensions are no longer enough for the elderly to buy the required food and medicines which have increased in price as a consequence of inflation. The law that had already been approved in the Legislative was vetoed by the ultra-liberal President, who stated that this was nothing more than an “act of demagogic populism” that could put the younger generations at risk of incurring greater debt, increasing inflation and increasing poverty.
The opposition declared that it would continue to seek approval from the legislature. Now they need two-thirds of the votes of the National Congress in order to keep it alive.
According to several politicians opposing Milei’s government, pensioners have lost almost 45% of their purchasing power despite the bonuses offered by the State to the elderly. In fact, Milei has just offered a new 70,000 pesos bonus for pensioners (about USD 70), although it doesn’t seem that these measures would help sustain a precarious economic situation.
The minimum monthly pension is worth 225,000 Argentine pesos (about USD 231), while it is estimated that between essential food and basic services, an Argentine must pay about 291,000 pesos (about 300 dollars). In 2024, Argentina suffered cumulative inflation of 87%, while year-on-year inflation is at 263%.
State repression of pensioners
Faced with the government’s refusal, several social organizations and groups of pensioners came out to demonstrate against the presidential veto. The response of the repressive forces was swift. They fired tear gas at the protesters and beat opponents of Milei’s government with batons, many of whom were elderly and dealing with sickness and disability.
The harsh repression caused injuries to more than 27 people, two of whom had to be taken to a hospital for treatment. In declarations to TN, the deputy of the Left Front (Frente de Izquierda) Christian Castillo harshly criticized a large number of police officers and their repressive attitude against the pensioners’ demonstration: “We do not know why they organized this operation with the Federal Police today, since the pensioners mobilize around the Congress every week. They repressed [everywhere]. A whole show by [Secretary] (Patricia) Bullrich to defend a veto denying 17,000 pesos a day to pensioners, which is the cost of one croissant a day. But the veto is going to be defeated!”
Nancy Yulan, one of the demonstrators, expressed in this regard that, “We still have injured comrades who are trying to recover from the tear gas that the Federal Police and the City Police shamelessly poured on their faces. There is a comrade who has a wound in her face with ten stitches.”
The economic situation has become critical for many elderly people, even putting their lives at risk. According to Eugenio Semino, Ombudsman for the Elderly of Buenos Aires, “The elderly in Argentina have to choose every day between eating or buying medicine. In the group of elderly people, a humanitarian crisis has been going on for many months. That is to say, the situation in terms of economics and health has generated not only the loss of quality of life of the sector but also the loss of lives themselves.”
However, Milei’s neoliberal prescriptions do not contemplate increasing public spending in his crusade to reduce the size of the State and thus decrease the fiscal deficit. Furthermore, Milei has opted for police repression instead of negotiation in all cases where increased spending and state participation in the economy are required. However, to this day, his controversial measures are not structurally improving the country’s economic situation, and has plunged the poorest and most unprotected, such as the elderly, into a situation of despair.
