Publication
Omar Shaban Ismail · Sawa News Agency · 2020
A column by Omar Shaban for Sawa News Agency that sets out the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics' poverty figures: 29 percent overall, 53 percent in the Gaza governorates against 14 percent in the West Bank. From them he concludes that Palestinians are poorer than is thought, that pay gaps between ordinary employees and senior posts, ministers and political bodies are wide, and that many people in work earn less than the poverty line. He reads the figures as a partial failure of development and anti-poverty programmes, and calls for revising relief and development policy, the salary scale and the budgets for the poorest areas and groups.
Omar Shaban, 2020: Palestine's poverty figures reveal wide gaps between Gaza and the West Bank and in pay, and call for new policy.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics:
- 29% of Palestinians are poor according to 2017 figures: 14% in the West Bank governorates and 53% in the Gaza governorates.
- The relative poverty line for a typical family of five is 2,470 shekels a month.
- 17% of Palestinians live below the deep poverty line, which is 1,974 shekels a month for a family of five: 6% in the northern governorates and 34% in the Gaza governorates.
- 96% of families own at least one mobile phone line.
- 89% of those over 18 own a smartphone line: 92% in the northern governorates and 82% in the Gaza governorates.
- 58% of families own the home they live in.
Some important conclusions:
- The gap in poverty rates between the northern and the southern governorates is wide. This huge gap will be a major obstacle to harmony and cohesion between the two regions.
- Palestinians are poorer than is thought.
- Consumption rates and patterns in Palestinian society are entirely out of proportion to the scarcity of resources and the fragility of the economy.
- The gap is very wide between what most Palestinians earn and the salary levels of senior posts in some government bodies, the banking sector and the non-governmental sector.
- Within the government sector itself the gap is wide between the salaries of most of its employees and the salaries of ministers, the allocations of political forces, and members of the Executive Committee and the PLO's many structures.
- Poverty is not linked only to those who do not work: many who work in the private and public sectors fall within the poor and very poor segments, earning salaries and wages far below the poverty lines.
- Most public-sector employees qualify for humanitarian assistance.
- These indicators show clearly the partial failure of the development and anti-poverty programmes applied in Palestine by international and national actors alike.
- More than ever, development and relief policies, the scale of salaries and bonuses, and the budgets allocated to fighting poverty and unemployment in the poorest areas and among vulnerable groups need to be revised.
Topic: Palestinian Economy — poverty · inequality · public-sector salaries — Text © Sawa News Agency — archived here with attribution to the source. — Original source