In 2016 Ukrainians were spending 53% of their income on food. Today this number dropped to 48%, but it’s still 4 times more than people in Europe spend.
Half of their income Ukrainians spend on food
According to Segodnya.ua, Ukrainians spend about 48% of their income on food. In Europe, on average people spend only 12% to buy food.
- Britain: 10%
- Nerherlands: 10.6%
- Poland: 17%
- Lithuania: 27%
Liudmila Cherenko from the Institute of Demographics and Social Research pointed out that 26.7% of all Ukrainian households are spending over 60% of income on meals.
7.6% of Ukrainian households are spending 90% of their income on meals and paying rates and utilities.
Relativity of poverty
However, poverty is a relative thing. In Ukraine a person earning an average wage (10,000 hryvnia or USD 313 monthly) is not considered poor.
Only 10% of Ukrainians consider themselves poor, according to another research.
For instance, the parity of purchasing ability of the Ukrainian hryniva compared to the U.S. dollar is 7.8.
This means, if you were to spend in the USA $100 on buying goods and services, in Ukraine you would spend 780 hryvnia.
However, if you were to exchange UAH to USD, you would only get $30 in exchange for UAH 780.
According to evaluation of the World Bank, the share of people living in poverty in Ukraine is only 4.9%.
So, if you were to compare the lifestyle of a woman in Ukraine and your own, you need to use 7.8 quotient: Divide her earnings in hryvnia to 7.8 and this will be comparable to your earnings in USD.
For instance, if her wage is 10,000 hryvnia, she is able to afford the lifestyle comparable to someone earning around $1,300 in the USA. While it’s still not a lot of money, you can better evaluate what is possible for her than if you were looking at the current official exchange rate of 25.50 hryvnia for 1 USD.
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