Following a sharp economic downturn in 2009, Armenia is finally seeing a slow but steady decline in its poverty rates. As the country continues to find ways to increase wages and create jobs to stimulate the economy, Armenia’s poverty rate will maintain its decline.

Although Armenia has been experiencing a decline in its poverty rate in recent years, this decline comes after a six-year period of high poverty rates. In fact, in 2008 Armenia’s poverty rate was reported at 17.4 percent and had virtually doubled to 32.4 percent at the end of 2012.

This increase comes directly from the sharp economic decline in 2009 coupled with extremely low salaries that did not compensate for the cost of living in Armenia, despite it already being 54 percent lower than the United States.

However, the country quickly found a solution at the end of 2013 that gradually decreased the poverty rate and increased salaries and pensions.

ARKA News Agency noted that in 2014, 900,000 people were poor, with 310,000 very poor and 60,000 extremely poor. These accounted for 19.4 percent of the population as poor, 8.4 percent as very poor and 2 percent as extremely poor. But by 2015, Armenia had returned to a 29.8 percent poverty rate, just 12.4 percent more than the poverty rate in 2008.

Despite a still inflated poverty rate, the country continues to see improvements in its poverty rates. In 2015, Armenia ranked second to its neighbors in poverty rates at 29.8 percent, but now in 2017, at the same rate, it is ranked fourth.

With the poverty rats continuing to fall, the GDP has reflected the trend by increasing. Last year, the GDP climbed to $10.547 billion, a $0.018 billion increase from 2015.

As the country continues its substantial improvement, Armenia’s poverty rate will sustain its reduction while its GDP and salaries increase.

– Amira Wynn

Photo: Flickr