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In 2018, the poverty rate in Armenia was 23.5%, meaning that every fourth person in the country lived below the upper poverty line of AMD 42 621, according to the new report “Social Snapshot and Poverty in Armenia” released by the country’s Statistical Committee.

The newly released data suggest the number of the poor in 2018 was around 700 thousand of whom around 315 thousand were moderately poor (including the extremely poor), including around 30 thousand who were extremely poor. Compared to the previous year, both the total number of the poor and the number of the moderately and the extremely poor decreased.

In 2018, the difference in poverty rates by urban (24.9%) and rural (21.3%) communities was 3.6 percentage points. Nonetheless, there was a rather significant 10.4 percentage point difference of poverty rates in Yerevan (19.9%) and other urban communities (30.3%).

According to the report, to overcome poverty, Armenia would need AMD 63.2 billion, or an amount equal to 1.1% of GDP, in addition to the resources already allocated to social  assistance, assuming that such assistance would be efficiently targeted to the poor only.

Eradication of extreme poverty would require around AMD 1.0 billion, or 0.02% of GDP, in addition to social assistance already channeled to the extremely poor and assuming efficient targeting.