Buenos Aires (AP) – At the bottom of the garbage containers of Buenos Aires, Elías Fernández, 27, looks among waste to make a living. Fernández is a construction worker who lost his job in November and now sleeps with his children on the floor of a friend’s apartment. He is now a full -time collection, often accompanied by his teenage daughters, Morena and Valentina, and his little son Juan, who looks at him with great eyes.
The Fernández family is part of a vast underground economy that has grown while the libertarian president Javier Milei advances with the most intense austerity program in Argentina in recent history.
Although the official statistics agency of the Nation reported on Monday a decrease in poverty in the second half of 2024, many Argentines have not yet felt the promised benefits of economic reforms.
As legions of other families, Fernández and their children beg food and spend their days collecting pieces of cardboard, metal parts or wire wires, carrying them in a rented car to sell them to a local recycler.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
This article was published by Rodrigo Abd on 2025-04-03 02:47:00
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