Poverty and Income Distribution
Behind the facade of an affluent nation, Egypt is actually facing high levels of unemployment and immense poverty. The majority of its younger population is struggling with unemployment and destitution, and heightening food prices in Cairo
According to an Associated Press report, nearly half of all Egyptians live under or just above the poverty line. In fact, more than 15 million Egyptians live on less than $1 a day, and the figure is steadily increasing. The Minister of Economic Development, Othman Mohamed Othman, once mentioned that the poverty rate in Egypt had rose from 19 percent of the population in 2005 to 21 percent in 2009.
Various statistical databases show that Egypt has:
· A population of 80 million, with 33 percent who are 14 years and below; and 20 percent of the population living below the poverty line.
· A labor force of 26 million, with 32 percent working in agriculture, 17 percent in industry, and 51 percent in the service sector.
· An unemployment rate of 9.7 percent.
· A literacy rate of above 71 percent, with males at 83 percent and females at 59.4 percent
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Egypt
Famous quotes containing the words poverty, income and/or distribution:
“Poverty in itself does not make men into a rabble; a rabble is created only when there is joined to poverty a disposition of mind, an inner indignation against the rich, against society, against the government.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.”
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946)
“The man who pretends that the distribution of income in this country reflects the distribution of ability or character is an ignoramus. The man who says that it could by any possible political device be made to do so is an unpractical visionary. But the man who says that it ought to do so is something worse than an ignoramous and more disastrous than a visionary: he is, in the profoundest Scriptural sense of the word, a fool.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)