Nearly half of Bulgaria’s population is endangered by poverty and this is alarming statistics. As far as our incomes are concerned, we are last in Europe and the speed of catching up doesn’t foresee an even closer approach to the average standard of living.

Everyone knows that about 10 – 15 percent of people in this country have a decent living standard and are wealthier. These are mostly people, who managed to get rich in the process of privatization via purchases on the cheap of working enterprises, of course with political support. A large group of these people now manage production and finance empires. There is a small group included there, of those, who had success in the process of restitution of their grandfathers’ real estate properties, nationalized back in the communist era. Few people also receive some rents and this is their additional income. The fourth group belongs to young people, who form their wealth due to good, steady and increasing incomes. To sum up, the group mentioned above own over 80 percent of the material wealth of Bulgarians, put into numbers by statistics.

This wealth was estimated to a bit over EUR 75 bln. end-September 2013. Bank savings of households only came up to some EUR 1.8 bln. back then. However, about 80 percent of these savings are to the tune of EUR 500, statistics says. The rest of the money forms greater individual sums. By the way, the biggest wealth of the Bulgarians, compared to the other Europeans are their own apartments, as nearly 90 percent of the population owns such accommodations. This tradition remains uninterrupted. The number of those, who spare money or borrow with the purpose of buying a second and a third home, is going up. Maybe this won’t matter that much for the youngest generation, due to the global village, established by the Internet.

As far as labor incomes are concerned, there is no surprise here either – about 600,000 Bulgarians work at and a bit over the minimum wage. At the same time about 20 percent don’t take it regularly. The number of those, involved in the grey economy sector is significant either – officially they are paid the minimum wage, but the employer “adds something quietly”.

However, sometimes we say that a person is poor and relies on the social security system, but we should take into consideration the lack of education, work habits and the will to work, which are typical for certain groups of the society. The poverty of those, still working, should be a priority. What else is poverty, if not few coins in the pocket after paying your bills and food for the month? Employers say that wages are low due to low labor productivity. However, trade unions have proved the opposite many times, with numbers. One way or another, few people in this country receive decent labor incomes – mostly in the IT sector, in some finance institutions, insurance companies etc.

Of course, the spiritual image of the average Bulgarian, the sense of humor, the hard working and the good heart are something, not changed by the centuries. By the way, people with the lowest incomes donate most often, when we talk about charity campaigns.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev