ABSTRACT
Since the democratic transition in 1990, Chile has been regarded as a model country in the Latin American context, with a stable democracy, a thriving economy and remarkable poverty-reduction advances. This chapter contends that poverty reduction brought with it a concomitant expansion of highly precarious middle-income earners who spend more than they make, are highly indebted and experience uncertainty about their future and opportunities. Because social protection is generally targeted and means-tested, they are not eligible for most welfare benefits. In a context in which political actors and institutions enjoying low levels of legitimacy have been largely unable to address middle-income earners’ heterogeneous grievances, tensions accumulated and eventually led to the social explosion.
