Venezuela’s Official Poverty Statistics Worsen, Contradict Maduro Narrative

http://panampost.com/panam-staff/2014/05/27/venezuelas-official-poverty-statistics-worsen-contradict-maduro-narrative/

Although President Nicolás Maduro said until last Thursday that the “socialist revolution” had succeeded in reducing poverty in the country, the latest official poverty numbers suggest otherwise. They come from the National Statistics Institute (INE) of Venezuela and were published by the local press on Friday, May 23.

INE
National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela). Source: INE Facebook.

The figures maintain that in 2013, poverty in Venezuela reached 27.3 percent, which implies an increase of 6.1 percentage points from 2012. That translates to an estimated 1.79 million additional people in poverty, as of the end of last year. Extreme poverty also rose from 7.1 percent in 2012 to 9.8 percent in 2013.

According to Ronald Balza, an economics professor and researcher at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, the increase in poverty is not surprising. He identifies sloppy management of resources and obstacles to the private productive sector.