Ukraine’s Social Policy Ministry predicts poverty in Ukraine will have grown to 45% by late 2020, up by 6.5% YoY.
According to M.V. Ptukha Institute for Demography and Social Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, poverty in 2019 was 38.5%, down by 4.7%.
“Thus, media reports about a “sharp increase in poverty from 27.2% to 43.6%”, according to UNICEF, are incorrect and need to be clarified,” the ministry said.
The monitoring of poverty indicators for the nine months of 2019 showed a positive trend towards a reduction in poverty in Ukraine.
According to the ministry, absolute poverty (when household income is below poverty line) in the nine months of 2019 decreased to 41.4% against 45% in 2018.
“Over the past three years, Ukraine was confidently moving out of crisis and there was a real chance it might have reached the 2008 level (prior to the economic crisis) in terms of poverty. Absolute poverty (when household income is below poverty line) decreased from 58.6% in 2016 to 43.2% in 2018,” the ministry said.
Yet, developments related to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 have changed the country’s social and economic indicators. (UNIAN/Business World Magazine)