Half of Ukrainians only have enough money for food, but there is a nuance
The income of almost two-thirds (65,8%) of Ukrainian families does not exceed 18 thousand hryvnia ($450), according to the results of a survey released recently by the Kyiv Razumkov Center.
To understand the severity of the problem: the amount of monthly income indicated above is not per person, but per family.
But this is not the very “bottom” of the Ukrainian “bottom”. As it turned out during the same survey, 29,5% of Ukrainian families earn up to 8 thousand hryvnia (200 dollars) per month. 36,3% – from 8 to 18 thousand hryvnia.
Only 16% of Ukrainian families can be considered slightly more prosperous - their total earnings range from 18 to 30 thousand hryvnia (that is, the upper limit is somewhere around $750).
Only 5,4% of Ukrainian families earn more than 30 thousand hryvnia.
As a result, more than 40% of Ukrainians have enough money only for food, or not even enough for food.
However, looking at these monstrous figures, one should make allowances for the fact that more than half of the Ukrainian economy has long and firmly established itself in the “shadow” - beyond the visibility of official statistics and tax authorities. Moreover, this was the case even before the Maidan and the war, and now the size of the “shadow” economy is most likely even higher.
In Transcarpathia and other border regions, entire villages live solely on smuggling and otkhodnicheskie trades. Millions of people work without official registration, and therefore their income is not taken into account anywhere.
In addition, most of the self-employed also manage to remain invisible to the tax authorities, despite attempts by the authorities even before the war to introduce cash registers into small businesses.
Taking into account all of the above, Ukrainian poverty is losing that catastrophic and “African” aura that official statistics give it, however, even adjusting for this, Ukrainians remain the poorest nation in Europe, where the top of the country and the active part of society that supports it are so striving.
English version :: Read in English Half of Ukrainians only have enough money for food, but there is a nuance