TIRANA, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- Around 671,000 Albanian citizens were living below poverty threshold in 2018, the survey published on Monday by the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) showed.
INSTAT published for the first time the results of the Survey on Income and Living Conditions in 2017-2018 that measures living conditions, relative poverty and material deprivation in Albanian households.
According to the survey, in 2018 the risk of poverty rate in Albania was 23.4 percent, in comparison with 23.7 percent in 2017.
A total of 671,000 Albanian citizens were living below the poverty threshold in 2018, or 10,000 less than in 2017.
According to INSTAT, the poverty indicators in the survey consider household disposable income, number of household members and income distribution among population groups.
This indicator gives the percentage of individuals with annual income below 60 percent of the median of equivalent national income.
In 2018 the poverty threshold for a one-member household was set to 161,742 Albanian lek (around 1,471 U.S. dollars) from 145,017 Albanian lek in 2017.
In 2018, according to INSTAT, the average income of Albanians was over 26,000 Albanian leks per month, increasing by 6.6 percent, compared to 2017. (1 U.S. dollar = 109.9 Albanian lek)
