According to the National Household Survey carried out by the National Institute of Census and Statistics (INEC), poverty in Costa Rica has gone up by 1.1% in comparison to 2017.

“We are now seeing the consequences of not making decisions, poverty grows, unemployment grows, there’s deceleration of the economy and a raise in the interest rates. This is why the approval of the fiscal plan is crucial to fight poverty and to generate trust in the market to have economic growth”, commented Noggi Acosta, Vice-Minister of Treasury, “If we don’t make decisions soon the consequences will be inflation, devaluation and the loss of trust in the market, conditions that could worsen our situation”.

According to the report by INEC part of the reason for the increase in poverty has to do with the decrease in the income of independent workers in the past twelve months.

The poverty index went from 20% in 2017 to 21.1% in 2018, this means that 1,142,069 people in the country live in conditions of poverty, while 360,783 live in extreme poverty.

The province of Guanacaste is the most affected, in this region, 26% of the households can’t cover their basic needs, while in 2017 this number was of 22.4%.

“The situation of the country is serious and we have been warning for months of the importance of accepting the fiscal plan, not just because it generates additional income but because it also generates trust, if we don’t manage to generate trust it will be very difficult to generate employment and investment and its employment that will allow this group of families to pull through“,stated Rocío Aguilar, Minister of Treasury in an interview with Channel 7.