Two Full-Time Jobs and Nothing to Eat: Argentine Families Adapt to Skyrocketing Food Prices

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA — Diana Paucar walks a sun-baked dirt road in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires province. Two tiny feet peek out from her side: Her 1-year-old baby is fastened to her back, sleeping. Paucar is on her way to a soup kitchen.

It’s a supplemental soup kitchen — originally created to provide afternoon snacks to children. There, she waits for a few minutes, enjoying a floor fan’s temporary respite from the heat, before receiving a bottle filled halfway with orange juice and a “prepizza,” which consists of dough and tomato sauce and will serve as her three-person family’s dinner and main meal of the day.

She began visiting the community center in January. She says her husband’s salary no longer covers the cost of food.

“They gave him a small pay raise, but we are no longer covering our expenses,” Paucar says. “We don’t have enough for food anymore, and I have to look for places to go in order to get some so my child can eat.”

Lucila Pellettieri, GPJ Argentina

Punto Educativo Paulo Freire, a community center and supplemental soup kitchen in Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires.

Modesta Samudio gets in line behind her. She is a mother of two children, works at a toy store and lives with her partner, who works in construction. But even though they both have jobs, they do not have enough money to make it to the end of the month. After cutting their food purchases down to the bare minimum, they requested food assistance at the supplemental soup kitchen.

Situations like Paucar’s and Samudio’s have been cropping up in soup kitchens since January, says Norma Morales, the national leader of Somos Barrios de Pie, an organization that coordinates 5,000 soup kitchens throughout the country.

“These days, it’s not just families without work who come. Workers with formal jobs come, street sweepers, health care workers. They themselves tell you, ‘I’m ashamed to have to come and ask for food, but I don’t make it to the end of the month anymore,’” Morales says.

In December 2023, President Javier Milei’s government eliminated restrictions on the prices of foods in the basic food basket, a term for the food an average household needs, and prices rose by 93% between December and March.

Salaries, however, have not risen in kind. In the same period, minimum wage increased by just 30%, according to official data.

“That’s why I’m buying less than last year. It’s how I get by because the salary isn’t much,” Samudio says. “Milk is what we buy the least of. Meat, vegetables, only a little bit. We don’t get more because everything is going up.”

Source: Valorización mensual de la canasta básica alimentaria y de la canasta básica total, Gran Buenos Aires. National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) and Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic

Graphics by Matt Haney, Global Press Journal

In March, a family of three needed 285,048 Argentine pesos (approximately 328 United States dollars) just to cover food expenses. Argentina’s monthly minimum wage that month was 202,800 pesos (approximately 234 dollars).

And although the national government doubled, at the start of the year, the amounts for its Asignación Universal por Hijo (AUH) and Tarjeta Alimentar subsidies — which parents can receive if they are unemployed, do informal work, work in private homes or work in social cooperatives — they do not reach those families whose employment status makes them ineligible, even if their pay doesn’t last the month, says Marisa Graham, Argentina’s ombudswoman for the rights of children and adolescents.

Meanwhile, the same government, as part of its fiscal tightening measures, has lowered the income amount for registered workers to qualify for assistance. Before, families received the assistance if their monthly income did not surpass 3,960,000 pesos (approximately 4,570 dollars). Since February, only families with an income up to 2,154,806 pesos (approximately 2,480 dollars) have been able to receive the allowance.

“The family allowance for registered workers is much lower than AUH,” Graham says. “You have more employment but [with more] registered workers below the poverty line.”

Lucila Pellettieri, GPJ Argentina

For many families who visit the supplemental soup kitchen at Punto Educativo Paulo Freire, the pizza they serve is their only meal of the day.

The maximum amount a family can receive if one of the parents is a registered worker is 26,277 pesos (approximately 30 dollars) per child. Meanwhile, families in which the parents’ work is informal or whose parents are unemployed receive a maximum of 52,554 pesos (approximately 60 dollars) per child per month.

In short, unemployed parents, or those with informal jobs, can claim double the amount per child compared to families where at least one parent has formal employment.

Many of these families are coming to the soup kitchens, says Lidia Raquel Morales as she takes a batch of mini-pizzas out of the oven. She is a representative of Somos Barrios de Pie in the 17 de Noviembre neighborhood of Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires province.

“Before, we only made snacks for the children; the adults didn’t come. And this year they started to come,” she says.

Many families admit to her that the pizza, bread or fried pastry they receive at the supplemental soup kitchen is their only meal of the day.

While there are no current figures at the national level for the number of people who obtain food from soup kitchens, in the municipality of La Matanza, the most populated in the province of Buenos Aires, this type of assistance grew 30% during January, according to municipality data.

“Every time we open, someone new comes,” says Lidia Raquel Morales. “Keeping the place running is getting more difficult.”

Lucila Pellettieri, GPJ Argentina

Diana Paucar, above left, and Modesta Samudio, above right, started going to the community center and supplemental soup kitchen Punto Educativo Paulo Freire between December and January, when their incomes ceased to be enough to support their families. Below, community members speak with Lidia Raquel Morales, a representative of Somos Barrios de Pie, an organization that coordinates 5,000 soup kitchens throughout Argentina.

Graham, the ombudswoman for the rights of children and adolescents, has registered complaints from soup kitchens whose deliveries of dry goods from the national government halted in November 2023. In some cases, the last delivery was in October, she says.

The Ministry of Human Capital, which is responsible for food assistance programs, did not grant an interview to Global Press Journal. But it announced in a press release that “the discretionary dry goods delivery system was discontinued so the direct, intermediation-free monetary transfer modality could be implemented with soup kitchens and associations.”

In response to complaints about the termination of food deliveries to soup kitchens, Graham says she initiated legal action against the ministry so it would ensure food access during the transition to monetary assistance.

In the meantime, soup kitchens like the one Paucar visits have had to reduce their distribution schedules from five to three times a week and appeal to neighbors to continue operating.

“It matters to us that the elderly, the children, might only be eating three times a week. The responsibility to resolve this belongs to everyone,” Norma Morales says, “and even more so to this government.”