Prague, Dec 10 (CTK) – Almost 10 percent of Czech households have a problem making ends meet, which puts the Czech Republic in the 10th position in the EU, below the Western and above the southern countries, in terms of people´s assessment of their own poverty, according to a poll sociologists presented yesterday.
When it comes to people below the income poverty level, their share in the Czech population, also about 10 percent, is the lowest in the EU, the poll´s authors, Jiri Vecernik and Martina Mysikova, from the Sociology Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, said.
According to them, people´s own assessment of their situation and of their capability of making ends meet is a more accurate indicator of poverty than the income poverty level, because it takes not only people´s incomes but also expenditures into account.
The income poverty category applies to those with less than 60 percent of the median monthly income (22,531 crowns in the third quarter of 2015), i.e. some 13,500 crowns.
A total of 9.7 percent of Czechs, or about one million people, stayed below the poverty level last year.
Another 9.3 percent (960,000 people) said they had a problem making ends meet.
However, only four in ten people with incomes below the poverty level have a problem to make ends meet, while the remaining six can see no problem in this respect, the poll showed.
This means that only 4 percent of Czechs are below poverty level and simultaneously they have a problem making ends meet.
Vecernik said if studies take only people´s incomes into account and ignore their expenses, the results do not have to correspond to reality.
For example, in Prague, people earn more money than in other regions. On the other hand, the costs of housing are higher in Prague, Vecernik said.
The subjective indicator based on households´ answers provides more relevant results than the income poverty indicator, said Mysikova.
People´s problem with making ends meet is the lowest in Finland, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and France, where big problems are admitted by less than 5 percent inhabitants.
The situation is the worst in Greece, where almost 40 percent of inhabitants have a problem making ends meet.
According to statistics, the Czech Republic has long ranked among the countries with the lowest share of people endangered by social exclusion in which the role is played by the income, material security and job.
Last year, social exclusion threatened 14.8 percent (1.5 million) of Czechs.
($1=24.688 crowns)
rtj/dr/kva
