site.btaCost of Living per Month for 4-Member Household in Bulgaria is Lv 2,448

106 LIFESTYLE - CITUB - BULGARIA - COST OF LIVING - DATA

Cost of Living per Month
for 4-Member Household
in Bulgaria is Lv 2,448


Sofia, August 1 (BTA) - A four-person family (two adults and two children) can live comfortably on 2,448 leva per mont in Bulgaria,
according to data for the end of the second quarter of the year from the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria's (CITUB) Institute for Social and Trade Union Research.

This data was presented Thursday at a press conference by CITUB President Plamen Dimitrov and expert Violeta Dimitrova.

The 2,448 leva cost of living threshold marks the necessary funds to cover the cost of food, housing, health care, education, transport and recreation against the average Bulgarian standards for a four-member household. The total increase in the cost of living compared to the previous quarter is 6 leva and compared to June 2018 it is 87 leva.

To cover the cost of living, the net salary of the two adults in a family of four must be at least 1,224 leva for each of them, provided that both adults are employed and salary is their only source of income. The cost of living for a member the household is 612.15 leva per month.

A four-member household in Sofia needs 3,233 leva to live comfortably, with the average per person being 808.37 leva, which is 37 per cent more than the average for the country. Each adult family member needs to earn a net minimum of 1,617. The official salary data for the first quarter in Sofia report a net average salary of 1,285 leva (gross 1,656 leva), which is about 20.5 per cent lower than needed.

Households living with means below what is necessary to cover the cost of living are 71.3 per cent, with a declining trend - in 2016 they were about 78 per cent.

CIUTB data show that 28.7 per cent of households in the country earn income above the cost of living threshold and 30.3 per cent (2,185,000 people) have a monthly income per person of or below 348 leva, which is the official poverty line for 2019. The latter is down by about 57,000 people compared to the same period of the previous year. About 41 per cent of households (2,958,000 people) have a total household income above the poverty line but below what is necessary to cover the cost of living. There has been a 22,000 decrease of people in this category compared to 2018. CITUB reports that the average net wage is slowly approaching the cost of living threshold, but the gap is still significant.

CITUB noted that despite favorable economic trends and a steady increase in the average wage by 70.5 per cent over a ten-year period, only 30 per cent of Bulgarians receive an average or higher wage, and the tendency of regional differentiation when it comes to wages remains stable.

CITUB reports an even greater social divide - the richest 20 per cent of the population receive an average of 7.7 times more than the poorest 20 per cent, compared to the EU average of five times. IG/DT