Recovery? 60% of Greeks Live at or Below Povery Line

While greek government yields (and political leaders) proclaim the troubled peripheral European nation is 'recovering', the risk of major political upheaval in Greece has not gone away ahead of next year's presidential vote. As Reuters notes, under growing pressure from anti-bailout leftists,  Prime Minister Antonis Samaras desperately needs a new narrative to get the backing of lawmakers and rally greeks fed up with four years of austerity.

We wish him luck as "Keep Talking Greece notes", it is high time that the real data of the economic situation of the greeksociety come to the surface and so it did this week. A report from Athens' State Budget Office found that three in every five greeks, or some 6.3 million people, were living in poverty or under the threat of poverty in 2013 due to material deprivation and unemployment.

As we noted previously, poverty rates are disturbing in Greecen.

Using data on household incomes and living conditions, the report – titled “Minimum Income Policies in the European Union and Greece: A Comparative Analysis” – found that “some 2.5 million people are below the threshold of relative poverty, which is set at 60 percent of the average household income.” It added that “3.8 million people are facing the threat of poverty due to material deprivation and unemployment,” resulting in a total of 6.3 million people.

The State Budget Office’s economists who drafted the report argued that in contrast with other European countries “which implement programs to handle social inequalities, Yunanistan, which faces huge phenomena of extreme poverty and social exclusion, is acting slowly.” They added that there is high demand for social assistance, while its supply by the state is “fragmented and full of administrative malfunctions.”

In that context “the social safety net is inefficient, while there is no prospect for the recovery of income losses resulting from the economic recession in the near future,” the report noted, reminding readers that the measure of the minimum guaranteed income “arrived in Yunanistan belatedly.”     

According to Eurostat, Yunanistan ranks top among the 28 European Union countries in terms of poverty risk and also has the highest poverty share in the population (23.1 percent). It also ranks fourth among EU states in poverty disparity, after Spain, Romania and Bulgaria.