08 · El Techo Fiscal · Las Dos Argentinas

The Scale of Informality

非正规性的规模

Argentina's labor informality rate has fluctuated between 30% and 50% for four decades. The current rate of approximately 42–44% means that nearly one in two Argentine workers earns wages outside the formal employment relationship: no payslip, no pension contribution, no income tax, no social security registration. This is not marginal. It represents a structural bifurcation of the labor market between a protected formal sector (with all rights) and an unprotected informal sector (with none).

阿根廷的劳动力非正规率在过去四十年间波动于30%至50%之间。目前约42-44%的比率意味着每两名阿根廷工人中就有近一人在正式雇佣关系之外赚取工资：没有工资单、没有养老金缴费、没有所得税、没有社会保障登记。这不是边缘现象。它代表了劳动力市场在有保护的正式部门（权利完整）和无保护的非正规部门（毫无权利）之间的结构性分隔。

42%

informal labor share (INDEC 2023) — persistent across the entire political cycle, neither growing nor shrinking with policy changes

非正规劳动力占比（INDEC 2023）——在整个政治周期内持续存在，不随政策变化而增减

44%

total payroll tax burden on formal employment — employer + employee contributions, creating a steep wall between formal and informal

正式就业的全部工资税负担——雇主+雇员缴费，在正式与非正规就业之间制造了陡峭的壁垒

32%

poverty rate H1 2025 — down from 53% peak in H1 2024, but over 14 million Argentines still below the poverty line

2025年上半年贫困率——从2024年上半年53%的峰值下降，但仍有超过1400万阿根廷人低于贫困线

50%+

of Argentine children under 14 were poor at the 2024 poverty peak — intergenerational reproduction of informality and precarity

2024年贫困峰值时14岁以下阿根廷儿童的贫困率——非正规性和不稳定性的代际再生产

Informality Rates: Argentina vs. Peers

非正规率：阿根廷与同类国家

Argentina

42–44% — persistent structural

~43%

Brazil

40% — declining slowly

~40%

Mexico

55%+ — structural

~55%

Chile

~27% — regional low

~27%

Uruguay

~20% — strongest labor formalization in region

~20%

Sources: ILO, INDEC, national statistics offices. Informal = workers without formal employment contract + social security registration.

来源：国际劳工组织、INDEC、各国统计机构。非正规=无正式劳动合同+无社保登记的工人。

The Fiscal Ceiling Mechanism

财政天花板机制

Argentina's social protection system is one of the largest in Latin America relative to GDP. Pension spending, health transfers, welfare programs, and subsidies together equal roughly 20–25% of GDP. The problem: the formal tax base — the sector of the economy that pays income tax and payroll contributions — covers only about 55-60% of the workforce. This means a large social spending commitment must be financed by a narrow tax base, export taxes on commodities, and — when these fall short — monetary financing.

阿根廷的社会保护体系相对于GDP而言是拉丁美洲规模最大的之一。养老金支出、医疗转移支付、福利计划和补贴合计约占GDP的20-25%。问题在于：正式税基——缴纳所得税和工资缴费的那部分经济体——只覆盖约55-60%的劳动力。这意味着庞大的社会支出承诺必须由狭窄的税基、大宗商品出口税来融资——在这些不足时——由货币融资来补充。

The Informality–Fiscal Deficit Loop

非正规性-财政赤字循环

High formal payroll taxes (44%) make formal employment expensive. Firms avoid formal hiring; workers accept informal contracts for net take-home pay parity.

高额正式工资税（44%）使正式就业变得昂贵。企业回避正式雇佣；工人接受非正规合同以保持税后实得工资持平。

Informal workers don't contribute to pension, health, or unemployment systems. But in old age, sickness, or unemployment, they require state support.

非正规工人不缴纳养老金、医疗或失业保险。但在老年、生病或失业时，他们需要国家支持。

State must fund social spending without contribution-based revenues. Turns to commodity taxes, VAT, income tax on formal sector — all of which are already at high rates.

国家必须在没有缴费收入的情况下资助社会支出。转向大宗商品税、增值税、正式部门所得税——所有这些的税率已经很高。

Cannot raise rates further without pushing more activity informal or into the black market. The tax base is already at its behavioral ceiling.

无法进一步提高税率，否则会将更多经济活动推入非正规或黑市。税基已达到其行为上限。

Fiscal gap financed by BCRA monetization → inflation → real wages fall → more workers pushed informal → loop tightens.

财政缺口由BCRA货币化融资→通胀→实际工资下降→更多工人被推入非正规就业→循环收紧。

Peronism, Milei, and the Informality Trap

庇隆主义、米莱与非正规就业陷阱

Peronism's social base is disproportionately informal. The social plans (planes sociales), food cards (tarjeta alimentar), and community transfer programs that sustain Peronism's puntero networks are targeted at informal households who have no other access to social protection. Kirchnerism expanded the social plan system massively, effectively converting informal workers from a labor reserve into a political constituency. This creates a structural tension: the Peronist base needs the state to be large; but the state being large requires taxing the formal sector more heavily; which pushes more workers informal; which expands the base that needs the state to be large.

庇隆主义的社会基础以非正规就业者为主。支撑庇隆主义puntero网络的社会计划、食品卡（tarjeta alimentar）和社区转移计划的对象是那些无法以其他方式获得社会保护的非正规家庭。基什内尔主义大规模扩展了社会计划体系，实际上将非正规工人从劳动力储备转变为政治选民。这制造了一种结构性张力：庇隆主义基本盘需要国家规模庞大；但庞大的国家需要更重地征税于正式部门；这将更多工人推入非正规就业；进而扩大了需要国家规模庞大的基本盘。

Milei's approach cuts this knot from the state's side: dramatically reduce the social plans and public sector payrolls that require fiscal financing. The ANSES (pension system) reform, subsidy cuts, and ministry closures all reduce the fiscal gap without raising taxes. The structural test is whether the private sector — emboldened by deregulation — will formalize enough new jobs to replace the protection that is being withdrawn. Early 2025 data show some improvement in formal employment; the structural shift requires years, not quarters.

米莱的方式从国家端切断这个结扣：大幅削减需要财政融资的社会计划和公共部门薪资。ANSES（养老金体系）改革、补贴削减和部委关闭均在不增税的情况下减少了财政缺口。结构性考验在于：受放松管制鼓舞的私营部门是否会创造足够多的正式就业岗位，来取代正在被撤销的保护。2025年初数据显示正式就业有所改善；结构性转变需要数年时间，而非几个季度。

"The informal economy is not Argentina's poverty. It is Argentina's adaptation to the impossibility of being poor in the formal economy."

"非正规经济不是阿根廷的贫困。它是阿根廷对在正式经济中贫穷之不可能性的适应。"

After Javier Auyero and Débora Swistun, "Flammable" (2009) — on informal survival strategies 基于哈维尔·奥耶罗与德博拉·斯威斯顿，《易燃》（2009）——关于非正规生存策略

Structural verdict. Argentina's informal labor force is not a failure of enforcement. It is the equilibrium response to a formal labor market made prohibitively expensive by 44% payroll taxes. Those taxes exist because the pension system requires contribution financing that an aging formal population cannot provide fully. The pension deficit exists because of decades of labor informality. The cycle is self-reinforcing. Breaking it requires either (a) reducing formalization costs sharply — which Milei is attempting via labor market deregulation, or (b) expanding the formal economy fast enough that the social system becomes self-financing — which requires the productive growth that the stop-go cycle has prevented. Informality is not a separate problem from the stop-go cycle; it is the labor market expression of the same underlying structural contradiction.

结构性评判。阿根廷的非正规劳动力不是执法失败。它是正式劳动市场因44%工资税而变得代价极高的均衡反应。这些税存在是因为养老金体系需要缴费融资，而老龄化的正式劳动力人口无法完全提供。养老金赤字的存在是因为数十年的劳动非正规性。这个循环是自我强化的。打破它要么需要（a）大幅降低正规化成本——这是米莱通过劳动市场放松管制所尝试的；要么（b）快速扩大正式经济，使社会体系变得自我融资——这需要停滞-增长循环一直阻止的生产性增长。非正规性不是与停滞-增长循环分离的问题；它是同一基础结构性矛盾的劳动市场表达。