Nearly a third of the Slovak population – 28 percent – feels constant financial pressure, compared to 17 percent in the European Union, sociologist Roman Džambažovič announced at the country's first public hearing on poverty, which took place in the Slovak Parliament on Tuesday, April 20.
As many as 62 percent of the poor cannot afford to eat meat every other day, 84 percent are too cash-poor to holiday outside their home, 14 percent cannot buy heat for their household, 13 percent have housing arrears and 76 percent cannot settle contingent expenditures, said Džambažovič at the event, which was attended by politicians and researchers. According to European statistics, 10.9 percent of people live below the poverty line (judged to be 60 percent of average national income in each country).
Slovakia this week took over from the Czech Republic the running of awareness-raising campaigns against poverty as part of the European Year for Combating Poverty launched by the European Union in early 2010, the TASR newswire wrote.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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