Venezuela poverty drops under Chavez

The number of Venezuelans living below the poverty line has sharply dropped since socialist-leaning President Hugo Chavez was first elected.


Since 1999 when Chavez was first elected, most polls have consistently shown that the president's support base is stronger among Venezuela's poor.

To fight poverty, the government has implemented "social missions," a series of state-funded social programs across diverse areas of human development such as education, medicine, nutrition, and culture.

Authorities claim that the poverty rate has dropped to 27% and extreme poverty to 7.7% since Chavez took office, when 49% of the population lived below the poverty line and 21% were suffering from extreme poverty.

They also say Gini index in Venezuela is the lowest in South America.

The Gini index is a measure of the inequality of distribution, a value of zero expressing total equality and a value of one maximal inequality.

Such achievements have been confirmed by international organizations such as the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean or UNDP as well as by local human rights organizations.

However, opposition groups have cast doubt on these figures saying that despite huge oil revenues, living standards have declined for most people in the country.

They argue that the government spends less than 4 percent of the national budget on the social missions and problems like high crime rates, low quality housing, inefficient administration and environmental degradation continue to affect people's lives for years to come.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• national budget crime rates

[Metsada007]

CNN, Fox, BCC and others won't report this, I wonder why ??

[777ELDEMONIO]

VIVA HUGO CHAVEZ

[salvadro9298]

Viva Chavez !!!

[Aanthanur]

damn pressTV, is there no reliable source?

[MrCaracas1000]

Viva Chavez !!!!

[BOLSHEVIXTREME]

wow!