Tornos News — Poverty in Greece has increased by 40% from 2008 to 2015, according to data released by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW). Cyprus with a 28.2% rise comes after Greece, followed by Ireland with a 28% increase.
The study did not limit its criteria to the lowest income index, but included factors such as the inability to acquire material goods, as well as a decrease in education opportunities, underemployment and worse healthcare provisions. The high poverty level is attributed to a prolonged recession, high unemployment, as well as tough austerity measures and the conditions and terms imposed on Greece by its creditors.
The study showed that Mediterranean countries were the hardest hit, with Spain recording a poverty level rise by 18% and Italy by 11%.
Eurostat sets the poverty threshold for incomes in Greece at 4608 euro pa, a figure that is being reduced every year since 2009
The lenders at the moment are pressing for reducing the tax free threshold to 5500 euro, further ‘reforms’ (reductions) on pensions, and continuing austerity for decades to come, thus increasing the likelihood of more people being caught in the poverty trap.
Is worth recalling that one of the five headline targets of the Europe 2020 headline indicators is to reduce poverty by lifting at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty or social exclusion by 2020 in Europe, but evidently that does not apply to Greece.
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