Silvia Beatriz López, a 70-year-old woman from Ensenada, a town two hours from Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires, retired five years ago but still has a full-time job: stretching the $290 she receives as a pension over the entire month. This is a huge undertaking in Argentina, a country that has become one of Latin America’s most expensive.
“Every day I go to four or five supermarkets and shops, scouting for offers and discounts. I buy a little bit here and a little bit there. These days, I manage to have breakfast, a late lunch around 3 pm, and then I make myself a tea before going to bed. I just cannot afford much more than that,” she explains, visibly angry and frustrated.
Though the cold has started to settle in as the sun has set in Buenos Aires, Silvia stands alone, defiant, in front of Argentina’s imposing Congress. The weekly protest that brings together pensioners and their supporters every Wednesday since far-right President Javier Milei took office in December 2023 has wound down, but Silvia is not ready to go back home just yet. Wearing a thick light-blue coat and leaning on her cane, she blows a loud whistle and bangs two small cans. A sign around her neck reads: “Raise minimum pensions, now!” Large buses and cars hurry past her. Some of them honk in support, some passersby watch her curiously, and many simply ignore her. But she continues.
“I come and stand strong for all of those who are too weak to be here,” she says. “I have worked for 30 years to have a good pension, and I never thought I was going to be in this situation.”
Argentina’s economy has struggled mightily since the late 2010s, but the situation has deteriorated further since President Javier Milei came to power in late 2023. The far-right leader has launched a program of drastic public spending cuts that have targeted social services for pensioners and people living with disabilities, health care, education, public infrastructure works, scientific research, and subsidies for power and gas. These cuts have had a profound impact on the daily lives of millions across Argentina—especially pensioners who, like Silvia, have taken to the streets in protest. But the rules of the game have changed: now, federal security forces crack down on protesters as part of an intense wave of repression unleashed by the Milei government.
“The Numbers Do Not Add Up”
Silvia is one of more than five million people who receive a minimum pension in Argentina. Though the $290 she receives places her below the poverty line, she feels fortunate.
“I’m lucky to have a home because many pensioners who must pay rent cannot afford food or are forced to choose between the medications they need, as they can’t pay for them all. People are using credit cards and turning to loan sharks to buy food.”
Many pensioners interviewed for this article said that they can only make ends meet with the help of their relatives, though many are themselves struggling.
“Living with such a small pension is practically impossible,” says Eduardo Barnei, 79, who has been working since he was 15 years old, including as a graphic designer and in an auto part shop he used to own.
“Last month I received 370.000 pesos, including a bonus. I went to the pharmacy to get some medicines and spent more than 100.000 pesos, then paid around 80.000 for bills, and now I must survive with the rest. The numbers just do not add up.”
Every Wednesday, rain or shine, Eduardo designs a new large sign with the message he wants Milei to see and travels an hour and a half by train to join other protesters in front of Congress.
“We are not going to give up. Our demands are fair. I do not want to resign myself to spending the last years of my life living without dignity. This has to change, and we will do everything in our power to make things change,” he says.
An Unprecedented Crackdown
Eduardo is part of a group of a couple dozen pensioners who initially began protesting outside of Congress on Wednesdays. Since their protests began in early 2024, they have been joined by social leaders, journalists, priests, and even soccer fans. Together, they confront a robust security apparatus made up of city police, military police, federal police, and naval forces that have deployed an alarming amount of violence against peaceful protesters.
Their violent crackdown has been facilitated by a handful of reforms pushed by Milei that have steadily eroded prior protections and loosened rules of engagement. In December 2023, the government announced a new protocol for protests, which gave federal security forces—whose mandate is to protect Argentina’s borders—the green light to disperse small groups of people using tear gas, hydrant tanks, and rubber bullets.
In a separate July 2025 decree, the Milei administration reformed the federal police, the largest security force in the country. Now, they are allowed to detain people without charge for 10 days and initiate investigations, including over what people post on social media, without the order of a judge. Human rights organizations said the changes open the door for the government to persecute journalists and activists.
The violent crackdown has been facilitated by a handful of reforms pushed by Milei that have steadily eroded prior protections and loosened police rules of engagement.
The results of these reforms have been predictable. Human rights organizations have reported a drastic rise in violence against protesters, including arbitrary arrests and the disproportionate use of tear gas and rubber bullets. A local human rights body, the Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture, noted in a recent report that it had documented more cases of ill-treatment and arbitrary detentions in the first half of 2025 than in the whole of 2024.
In the most infamous case of police brutality, photojournalist Pablo Grillo was nearly killed last March when he was hit with a tear gas canister as he was covering one of the protests. He is still hospitalized, and accountability for the officer responsible has been difficult to achieve, though progress has been made. During the same protest, Jonathan Navarro, a 33-year-old man who joined the demonstration to demand a better pension for his dad, who struggles to afford his medication, lost vision in one eye when he was hit with a rubber bullet.
“Repression has definitely become the norm. The objective seems to be to stop people from protesting,” a human rights observer said at one of the protests.
But pensioners are not stepping down. Silvia, for one, says she is not scared.
“I was there in March when they hit Pablo Grillo. I saw very old people being gassed, pushed, and ill-treated. It was scary, but I’m not scared. We have to defend our democracy that we worked so hard to achieve—we cannot give up on our country,” she says.
Maria Elba Álvarez, 78, also comes every week with a number of friends, though her sons tell her she should stay at home. They are worried by the brutality they see on TV and fear their mother might be next.
“My health is not what it used to be, but I come because we have to fight,” she says, standing next to an Argentine flag that hangs against the barricades that protect the Congress building from demonstrators.
Argentina has a long tradition of social movements and mass protests in which retirees have often played a crucial role.
Maria Elba has also been receiving the minimum pension since she retired 13 years ago. “The pension only stretches so far, affording food for the whole month is very difficult, I have lost a lot of weight, but if I had to pay rent, I would be living on the streets,” she explains.
Her daughter—who lost her job—and her two grandkids recently moved in with her to pool resources and make ends meet. “I used to dream about retirement, to have the time to rest, enjoy life, go to the cinema. Now I still have to fight. But at least there’s more and more people who support us, that gives me strength,” she says as she bangs a large stick against the metal barricade.
Pensioners Then and Now
It is not surprising that pensioners are taking the lead in the current protests. Argentina has a long tradition of social movements and mass protests in which retirees have often played a crucial role.
In the 1990s—a time of deep economic turmoil similar to today—Norma Pla organized mass demonstrations to demand higher pensions. Pla became a symbol of the struggle of senior citizens after she publicly confronted the then Finance Minister Domingo Cavallo, the mastermind of a neoliberal structural adjustment programme that led to one of the most severe crises in Argentina’s history.
In a filmed encounter, Pla made clear to Cavallo that it was impossible for people receiving the minimum pension to survive without help. The minister then became emotional after thinking about his own father, to which Pla responded by pleading with him to “have strength” and rectify the situation. Though her demands went unanswered, the moment remains iconic.
The neoliberal policies of the 1990s, which included massive cuts to social services and the pegging of the peso to the dollar, failed to stem the country’s economic crisis—banks shut down and kept people’s savings. While mass protests at the turn of the century eventually forced one president to resign, these cuts have been matched in their intensity by Milei’s reforms, which he argues are necessary to bring economic stability to the country.
Milei has managed to drastically reduce inflation from a whopping monthly rate of 25.5 percent in December 2023 to 1.9 percent in August 2025. But, overall economic activity is declining, and consumption has plummeted over the last year as prices of basic goods, including food, transport, medicines, and utilities, continue to rise. Unemployment has consistently increased over the last few months, and salaries remain stagnant. Extreme poverty has also risen, with a 27 percent increase in homelessness in the city of Buenos Aires over the past year alone.
Argentina’s lawmakers have responded to this social crisis by attempting to raise pensions and support people with disabilities. The law they passed on July 10, however, was vetoed by Milei, though they recently successfully overrode his veto on benefits for people with disabilities. Their attempt to raise pensions by overturning his veto is ongoing.
Even still, outside Congress, pensioners are not giving up. “The government is starving us, and if we don’t fight, things will only get worse,” says Silvia. She continues to blow her whistle, convinced—or hopeful—that someone will eventually listen.
Josefina Salomón is an Argentine journalist covering security, crime, and human rights issues in Latin America.
Patricio A. Cabezas is an Argentine popular educator, human rights activist, and documentary photographer.