21% of Bulgarians on Verge of Poverty

The economic crisis affected the income of every third Bulgarian household. File photo

The income of 30% of the Bulgarian households has dropped down and 21% of them live on the verge of poverty, according to a research of the Open Society Institute and the World Bank.

The research shows the financial situation of 2400 Bulgarian households between March 2009 and February 2010. The main point of the Thursday round table discussion was the effect of the economic crisis on the Bulgarian household.

According to the research, the decreased income is a result of loss of employment or reduction of salary. The negative effect of that is that people tend to limit their grocery, medical and educational expenses, which could have a negative effect in the future. 30% of the people save from food and 41% limit their usage of water and electricity.

Low-qualified people, as well as Roma people, are most affected by the economic crisis, while retired people suffer almost no negative effect. In order to increase their budget, many people try to find additional jobs.

"In most cases only the better educated and the rich people manage to find [additional work]. Poor households find it more difficult to handle this task because the demand of low-qualified labor is lower," the World Bank experts pointed out.

The Minister of Labor and Social Policy in Bulgaria, Totyu Mladenov, stated that although many people have decreased income, there is an increase in the employment, mostly in the tourism and agriculture areas.

Bulgaria's budget deficit increased to BGN 1.67 B in the first three months of 2010 due to a fall in revenues and a rise in spending for social payments.

The European Commission said last week that Bulgaria’s economy is likely to start to recover towards the end of 2010 under the impact of the international cycle.

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