Poverty in austerity-hit Greece is a fact. According to the recently published EU data on Labor, incomes have dramatically decreased since 2010, since the country sought the ‘rescue’ via the International Monetary Fund.
“Most affected by the income decrease are the vulnerable society groups. Real income in low income groups has decreased by 30% when compared to 2003, but in other society groups the income decrease was 20%.
Long-term unemployment reached “historic” levels.”
While million of Greek people do not need EU Statistics to confirm the loss of jobs and incomes, the European Minimum Income Network has recorded the data of shame for the Greek poverty, data based on official statistics authorities like ELSTAT and EUROSTAT as well as on scientific works.
In fact the data summary refers to the impact of two bailouts and two strict austerity programs and how did they affect millions of Greek households. In one example, the number of people who cannot afford buying food has doubled since 2009…
According to Greek Statistics Authority (ELASTAT),
Greece
is among the group of countries with the highest poverty (23.1%). Child poverty in 2012 was 26.5%.
is in fourth place among the 28 countries with the highest proportion of people in poverty (34.6%), behind Bulgaria (49.3%), Romania (41.7%) and Latvia (36 , 2%).
As for the other EU countries implementing strict austerity programs, Ireland has 30% of people in poverty, Cyprus 27.1%, Portugal 25.3%, Spain 28.2%.
Greece:
2,5 million people are below the threshold of relative poverty, i.e. 60% of the average household income.
5. 3.8 million people are at risk of poverty due to material deprivation and unemployment.
The number of households using central heating was reduced by 31.3% between 2013-2014.
During the second quarter of 2014:
The number of unemployed amounted to 1,280,101. Unemployment has also affected male workers in the productive age,.Unemployment among young people aged 15-24 reached 52%.
Many households are without any employee and without any available resources.
A dramatic decrease in earnings has been recorded, while the minimum wage is below the level of the year 2000.
Note: I did not manage to find this data list on European Minimum Income Network but here is the Greek translation as posted in Efymerida Twn Syntaktwn daily.
For EU Labor data check here in Greek.
