July 21, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
I almost feel sorry for the 108 leftist economists who predicted back in 2023 that Argentina would suffer if Javier Milei won the presidential election.
Not only were they disappointed when he enjoyed a landslide victory, but the subsequent events in Argentina have shown that they were wildly wrong (all of which is discussed in my 10-part series: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
The bottom line is that libertarian policies have been incredibly successful.
Today, let’s look at even more evidence of Argentina’s remarkable renaissance.
We’ll start by recycling this tweet about the impressive wage growth in Argentina.
Very rarely in public policy do you see such a clear and obvious turnaround. Milei takes office, starts reducing the burden of government, and suddenly wages go up.
Opining for the U.K.-based Telegraph, Matthew Lynn celebrates Argentina’s recovery.
Moody’s this week gave Argentina its second upgrade since its radical libertarian president Javier Milei took power. It is yet more evidence of the dramatic improvement in the country’s fortunes. Growth has accelerated, inflation is coming under control, rents are falling and its debts are steadily becoming more manageable. …That is just one indicator among many.
The economy overall is expected to expand by 5.7pc this year… Inflation came down to a monthly rate of 1.6pc last month…a lot lower than the 200pc-plus it was running at when Milei took office. …in the 18 months since Milei took office, Argentina’s economy has been transformed. It has been achieved by radically slashing the size of the state.
Promising a “shock therapy” for the economy, the government has laid off more than 50,000 public sector workers, closed or merged more than 100 state departments and agencies, frozen public infrastructure projects, cut energy and transport subsidies, and even returned the state budget to a surplus. …open, free markets and a smaller state are the only way to restore growth, and Milei is proving it all over again.
Mr. Lynn concludes by wondering why people in other nations are not taking more notice.
The only question now is this: when will the rest of the world wake up to the Argentinian miracle?
Lynn also has a chart showing that Argentina is expected to enjoy very rapid growth this year.
However, since I don’t think economists are good forecasters, I would rather focus on what’s been achieved.
On that basis, I especially hope that folks on the left are paying attention to what’s happening.
If they really care about the poor, they should be Milei’s biggest supporters. Here are some details from a report by Adele Cardin in the Rio Times.
Argentina’s urban poverty rate dropped to 31.6% in the first half of 2025, its lowest level since 2018… Extreme poverty fell to 7.4%, down from 18.2% a year ago. This marks a significant turnaround after poverty surged to 52.9% in early 2024…
The decline reflects a rare moment of income recovery and price stability. …real wages in the private sector grew 10.4% between December 2023 and May 2025, allowing incomes to finally outpace the rising cost of living. For lower-income groups, the shift was even sharper. Their incomes rose 8.5% in early 2025, while the cost of the basic food basket increased by just 2% over six months. …The speed of the poverty drop-over 21 percentage points in just one year-offers a rare signal of social improvement.
Once again, the data tell a very compelling story.
Here’s a chart showing what’s happened to poverty. Notice the steep decline that began shortly after Milei took office.
I’ll conclude by acknowledging that I don’t want to get too excited too quickly.
There’s no possibility of Argentina turning into another Switzerland in the next year or two. You don’t undo 80 years of terrible policy in just 19 months.
But Milei has achieved far more than I hoped for in a amazingly short period of time.
P.S. Gary Johnson now has an answer to the question he was asked back in 2016.
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