Both the share and the number of poor declined between 1990 and 1998. Income inequality increased between 1986 and 1989, but stabilized thereafter, at least until 1996 for Mexico and Brazil, while Chile and Paraguay faced increasing inequality throughout the 1990s. In Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Venezuela, inequality did not change much, and in Bolivia, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic inequality actually decreased.

Even though income poverty has not fallen, social indicators have improved. Adult literacy, life expectancy, access to safe water, infant mortality are at levels consistent with the region's level of economic development. But secondary school enrollment are lower in part because of high income inequality. Worryingly, Argentine enrollment rates at the secondary and tertiary levels have decreased between 1992 and 1997 for the poorest 20 percent of the population.