Prague, May 12 (CTK) – Almost one-tenth of inhabitants of the Czech Republic, or 1.02 million, live under the income poverty level, but the material situation of Czechs improved last year and it was the best since 2005, according to a survey that the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) released yesterday.
The income poverty line was set at 10,220 crowns per individual and 21,461 crowns per family with children last year. The limit rose by 300 crowns compared with the previous year.
The Czech Republic has long ranked among the EU countries with the lowest share of people under the poverty level.
The survey of household conditions was carried out in 32 countries. Thousands of families took part in it in the Czech Republic. The results are mostly for 2014.
“The household income increased nominally (in 2014), but also in real figures, by 2.4 percent. The highest rise was in the households of employees. The share of people threatened with poverty has long been between 9 and 10 percent. In the Czech Republic, this figure is one of the lowest in the EU,” Sarka Sustova, from the CSU, told journalists yesterday.
The income poverty level corresponds to 60 percent of the national median income, which a half of inhabitants achieve.
The material situation of the country’s inhabitants improved in 2015 when 5.6 percent of Czechs, or some 590,000, suffered from “material deprivation,” which was about 100,000 fewer than the year before.
These people do not have at least four out of nine quite essential household items, such as a telephone, a washing machine, a TV set and a car. They, for instance, cannot afford to go on a one-week holiday at least once a year and have meat every other day, they are not able to cover an exceptional expense of a few thousands of crowns and pay a rent regularly.
In 2005, almost 12 percent of Czechs suffered from material deprivation. Until 2009, their share dropped to some 6 percent. Between 2012 and 2014, it was almost 7 percent.
Around 1.8 percent of people, or 190,000, have neither a sufficient income, nor material equipment nor a job in the Czech Republic, Sustova said, adding that their number decreased year-on-year.
($1=23.681 crowns)
