More than half of Ukrainians live below the poverty line—Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Kondratyuk

Author

Maksim Nechiporenko

Research by international organizations has shown an increase in the poverty level in Ukraine in 2020 by 50% and currently it is more than 19 million people.

This was stated by the Vice-Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Olena Kondratyuk during a meeting of the Conciliation Board, Ukrinform reports.

"According to the data of many international organizations, the poverty level in Ukraine has grown to 50%, and about 19 million Ukrainians are below the poverty line. Therefore, the Verkhovna Rada must challenge the government to urgently adopt a strategy and a set of measures to combat poverty in Ukraine until 2030," Kondratyuk said.

According to the count of the population of Ukraine in 2019, 37.2 million people lived in the country. Consequently, 19 million mean that more than half of the country's population lives below the poverty line.

Kondratyuk recalled that in accordance with the UN goals, Ukraine has pledged to reduce the poverty level by four times by 2030. This must be done by eliminating the extreme poverty level. Therefore, she believes that the Parliament should challenge the government to develop a new strategy for overcoming poverty.

Recall that this is even a positive assessment of the social and economic situation in Ukraine. Previously, the Head of the Ptoukha Institute for Democracy and Social Studies, Academician Ella Libanova said that more than half of Ukrainians were below the poverty line at the beginning of 2020. The global economic crisis has only exacerbated impoverishment, and the number of poor people has increased by 2021.

Earlier Libanova argued that poverty would affect only 45% of the population of Ukraine.

Poverty line is the level of disposable income below which a person is considered poor. Absolute poverty is often measured as the number of people or households whose consumption or income is below the poverty line.

Context. The latest poverty reduction strategy was adopted in 2016 with a deadline of 2020.

The reduction in the poverty level was assumed through the following factors:

assistance to the income growth of the population from employment and payments in the system of state social insurance;
ensuring the population's access to social services regardless of the place of residence;
minimizing the risks of the rural population social exclusion;
preventing the emergence of pockets of chronic poverty and social exclusion among internally displaced persons.