The INE recorded a 2,9% drop in poverty during the first half of 2026 compared to the same period the previous year; the number of households below the poverty line also fell by 2,3 percentage points.
President Yamandu Orsi highlighted this on his X account: “95,000 fewer people below the poverty line than a year ago,” he wrote.
He noted that “the data show we are making progress,” as poverty “dropped from 17,7% to 14,8%” and extreme poverty fell from 1,8 to 1,2%—”a reduction of one-third.”
“It is a significant improvement, but we know there is still much to do. My commitment is to keep working so that growth, employment, and public policies improve living conditions for more and more Uruguayans,” the president affirmed.
In the same vein, Secretary of the Presidency Alejandro Sanchez remarked on X that this represents “thousands of families living a little better today.”
He agreed with Orsi that “there is still much to do” but asserted that they are “fully committed”—putting their “very lives into it”—to “directing resources and public policies where they are needed most.”
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