BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The official poverty rate in Argentina jumped to 52.9% during the first six months of Javier Milei' s presidency, the government statistics agency reported Thursday, a rise from 41.7% that reflects the pain of Argentina's most intense austerity program in recent memory.

The government's finding that another 5.2 million people had so far slipped into poverty during Milei's short tenure marks a setback for the far-right economist even as foreign investors and the International Monetary Fund — to which Argentina owes $43 billion — cheer his fiscal shock therapy.

Bracing for negative news hours before the poverty report's release, Milei's spokesperson sought to deflect the blow in a lengthy press conference.

“The government inherited a disastrous situation,” Manuel Adorni told reporters, lambasting the decades of unbridled spending under Milei's left-leaning Peronist predecessors. “They left us on the brink of being a country with essentially all of its inhabitants poor.”