In recent years, the debate on inequalities became a central issue in order to understand the social, economic and political dynamics in Latin American countries since the beginning of the century. Indeed, this debate is in the heart of the discussion about the effectiveness with behalf to poverty reduction of the “progressive”, so called “left-wing” social policies, implemented in many countries of the region during the first decade of the 2000s. The debate evolves around the sustainability of the transformations brought by these social policies. These transformations, are they punctual or rather structural improvements? In this article we propose to explore these transformations, focusing on the analysis of the relationship between different public policies (work and employment, social, educational and housing policies) and a wider range of forms of state intervention. The analysis focuses on two main issues: the ability of this articulation of public policies to transform / improve the living and working conditions of large segments of the population, on the one hand; its effects on forms of identity construction, subjectivities and class relations, on the other.