Argentines feel the pain of 100% inflation
STORY: Argentines feel the pain of 100% inflation.
At a garbage dump outside Buenos Aires, men wade through piles of rubbish searching for usable clothing, and even food in mountains of waste.
Cardboard, plastic and metal—gets sorted and hauled away with hopes to sell it later.
As Argentina grapples with staggering inflation these men are struggling to survive.
Inflation could hit 100% this year-- the sharpest rise in prices since a period of hyperinflation around 1990, an extreme case in a world battling to tame soaring prices.
Sergio Omar – a father of five-- spends 12 hours a day trawling through the garbage.
“Twice as many people are coming here because there is so much crisis. The situation is growing and growing and they do not care about the poor workers, we who are poor. We live day to day.”
A century ago Argentina was one of the world's most affluent countries. But in recent years it has slid from one economic crisis to another and has struggled to keep inflation in check.
In 2001, during one of Argentina's worst economic crises, Sandra Contreras set up the Lujan Barter Club. It’s now taking off again as Argentines, unable to keep up with prices, look to exchange things like old clothes for a bag of flour or pasta.
"People come very desperate, their salaries are not enough, things (prices) are rising day by day…People have no money left but we need to take something home, so there's no choice but to barter."
Poverty levels in Argentina were over 36% in the first half of 2022 and extreme poverty rose to 8.8%, some 2.6 million people.
Pablo Lopez, who works in a small recycling center, said that the scars of rising prices were clear to see.
"This inflation is a madness, you can see it here with the people who come to work that inflation hits us all."
