The adjustment of successive governments in recent years under the IMF regime, and especially in Milei’s management, generated a loss of purchasing power for working families, who must resort to different income compensation and survival strategies. Not only is moonlighting growing, but also debt and dissavings.
Payment by card, in installments or on loan, loans with financial institutions but also with family and friends, and even the withdrawal of savings have been common in recent times. The report on maintenance strategies published this Tuesday by the Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec) In the first half of 2025, one in four households requested loans and 50.9% bought in installments or on loan..
More than two decades ago, in 2003, purchases in installments or on deposit were less than half, 22%, of households. Likewise, the percentage of families that requested loans from banks or financial institutions rose from 3.4% to 14.2% in the same period.
The report also found that in 2025 22.5% of low-income households (which includes the first four deciles plus those households without monetary income) They applied for a loan with family or friends. While households from higher income strata took on debt mainly with banks and financial institutions.
In this way, informal credit dominates in the lower-income sectors, compared to 8.3% in the upper stratum.
The data also highlights a serious decapitalization that adds to the debt. He 40.8% of households used savings or sold belongings during the period in question to meet consumption. Of that portion, the vast majority corresponds to low- and middle-income households.
In 2003, only 19.9% of households used savings to cover their expenses, but currently that figure has risen to 37.4% of households.
As a whole, the Indec report based on the Permanent Household Survey (EPH) shows that although the Paid work remains the main source of income (78.3% in 2003, 82% in 2025), there is a second layer of income coming from non-labor income (retirements and financial aid), but also from a growing debt.
The weight of social plans and financial aid tripled between 2003 and 2025, from 4.5% to 14.6%. But there is also a strong growth in families’ recourse to credit, loans and even dissaving or decapitalization as survival strategies.
This image of the reproduction conditions of working families is not surprising in a context of precarious work and living conditionsin which in years of extraordinary economic growth the poor population does not fall below 25%, and in crisis contexts it exceeds 50%, with serious results in terms of child poverty and food insecurity.
The government of Milei seeks to advance even further in the removal of rights through labor reform which only promises to increase the degrees of exploitation and job insecurity, which affects both those who are formal and informal workers.
The only way to put a stop to this attack with the organization and mobilization of the entire working class, with a general strike and a plan of struggleimposing it from below on the union leaders.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
