There were no surprises when Bituach Leumi released its annual poverty report on Monday, documenting one in four Israelis lives under the poverty line. Unfortunately, this has become an acceptable statistic, one which documents the continued deterioration of the economic makeup of the modern state’s society.
Analysts announce proudly that the numbers have not risen significantly in 2008, hailing the success despite the global economic crisis. The report shows 1,651,300 Israelis lives below the state-defined poverty line, including 783,600 children. What the report does not adequately highlight is the increasing number of working poor, families in which parents work but are unable to meet their monthly bills. This is backed by the report, which documents that among 46.3% of the “poor families” the family head is employed. It is a fallacy to believe the poor of Israel are simply sitting at home idly, but in almost half the cases, they are working but simply do not earn enough to pay basic bills.
The statisticians explain that the fiscal crisis hit in the second half of the year, and while the increase documented in the first half of the year was lost, it provided overall stability for the number crunchers, resulting in a report that depicts stability. The experts however warn the coming years, 2009 and 2010 are likely to be less forgiving.
Jerusalem remains the poorest area, with 32.3% of its residents listed as needy, along with 55% of the children of the nation’s capital.
(YWN Israel)
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2 Responses
Actually I am suprised that its only 1 in 4 and not more.
What the report doesn’t show is the number of families. Many of the poor are large families so the number of families is much less than 1/4 which is actually good.
Considering that 1/8 people in the US is unemployed, Israel is faring quite well.
But, for good or ill, those statistics are meaningless since a large percentage of the population, including probably most Hareidim and most Arabs, have sources of income that are not counted, including types of income that the government doesn’t count (money paid to kollel members, salaries paid by yeshivos to teachers, etc., transfer payments from America), or types of income that the recipient manages to hide from the government (working “off the books”). While elite/secular Israel has a modern first world economy, the rest of the country has a third world economy – and their statistical methodology doesn’t work in evaluating a third world economy.