19.4% of the poor population/ Albania with the highest level in the region

2022-08-25 08:45:00, Aktualitet CNA

19.4% of the poor population/ Albania with the highest level in the region

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According to the World Bank, Albania is the country with the highest level of poverty in the region, followed by Kosovo with 17.6% of the poor population, North Macedonia with 16.4%, and Montenegro with 15.6%. Serbia has a level below 10% of people living on less than 5.5 dollars a day.

The poverty level in our country reached a third of the population during the pandemic, but during the last two years poverty has decreased by 9%.

According to the World Bank, rising prices and high inflation can increase poverty in the Balkan region, where most of the family budget goes to food.

In the latest calculations of the Statistics Institute, 41.6% of a family's expenses in Albania go to food, 10% to housing, energy, water, and 6.9% to furniture and clothing, and 6.2% to transportation.

In 2019, the GINI coefficient in Albania was 30.8%, a level that shows that the gap between the rich and the poor is high, but not at the level of over 40% that some Latin American and African countries have.

The countries with the lowest level of inequality are Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Iceland./euronews