Milei’s first 100 days: Argentines struggle to make ends meet as support for president remains high
A butcher shutting down his shop barely eight months after opening it
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Sergio Gómez, a store owner in Buenos Aires, spends his days behind an empty counter, one nearly as empty as the large refrigerators in which he used to freeze meat. Above him, a blackboard displays outdated prices for the different cuts that he no longer sells.
The small grocery store he and his wife opened eight months ago is no longer viable. Sales plummeted at the beginning of the year as a sharp increase in grocery prices forced thousands of Argentines to modify their spending habits.
“First we decided to shut down part of the store and just sell meat and vegetables, but because of rising inflation and fewer people coming in, we had to shut down the butcher shop," said the 51-year-old butcher. «Now we have to shut down altogether. We can’t go on. We don’t have the resources.”
Gómez and his wife are among a large group of Argentines who say their economic situation is worse now than a year ago as a consequence of a series of austerity and deregulation measures ordered by President Javier Milei in his first 100 days in office.
Milei, a far-right economist, has said the measures are needed to help Argentina dodge the hyperinflation caused by populist policies of his predecessor, the left-of-center Alberto Fernández.
The burden of this inheritance explains in part the unprecedented tolerance expressed by many Argentines, whose support for their president remains strong — despite the worsening of their living conditions in the short term.
“How are we to blame Milei?” asked Carla Cavallini, Gómez’s wife. “I voted for him, and I have peace of mind, because he has been doing everything he said he would do. We knew this was going
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