A Significant Shift Is Lifting Thousands Out of Poverty

Paraguay has reduced its national poverty rate from 19.6% (2024) to 16.0% (2025), helping more than 213,000 people move out of poverty in just one year.

“The positive trend was not confined to specific regions but was a nationwide phenomenon,” said Iván Ojeda, pointing to broad improvements across the country.

The decline was seen in both urban and rural areas, with urban poverty falling from 16.9% to 13.6% and rural poverty dropping even more sharply from 26.3% to 22.1%. Extreme poverty also decreased from 3.7% (2024) to 2.4% (2025), with particularly strong gains in rural communities. Officials attribute the progress to rising incomes among lower-income households outpacing the cost of essential goods, as well as social policies that prevented an additional 239,000 people from falling into poverty and kept around 150,000 from slipping into extreme poverty. The data signals a meaningful improvement in living standards and highlights how economic growth and targeted support can drive rapid, nationwide change.