clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Government survey: Extreme poverty in Jordan at 15.7%

April 9, 2019 at 3:53 pm

Some 15.7 per cent of people in Jordan live in extreme poverty, according to the latest survey conducted by the government.

In a press conference, Prime Minister Omar Al-Razzaz said today that the poverty rate was at 14.4 per cent in 2010, up from 13.3 per cent 2008. Unofficial estimates place the poverty rate at 20 per cent in 2016.

Absolute poverty takes in to account all those living on less than $1 a day, according to the World Bank.

A survey on household income and expenditures 2017-2018 issued by the Department of Statistics revealed earlier that there were one million poor people out of 7.1 million Jordanians in the kingdom. There are nearly 10 million people living in Jordan including approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

PM: Jordan seeks to borrow $1bn from World Bank to cover debt