Poverty in Egypt

The other great Egypt Today article is a profile of Egyptian poverty. The author quotes at length interviews with a variety of analysts and public figures, and they're sometimes quite interesting. I recommend reading it if you'd like to know more about the economic situation here in Egypt.

A detached World Bank assessment:

"Poverty in Egypt is not severe or deep. Moreover, we have four percent of the population around the poverty line, who keep moving up and down. These people are very sensitive. A shock in expenditures or an LE 5 increase in their income per month can change their position, driving them down or pulling them up. This means that poverty is shallow. Since we have no panel data whereby we survey the same people every five years, we cannot determine whether poverty is transient or permanent."

A former politician:

"Housing is scarce. More than half of our real-estate is dilapidated. Millions live in communal homes. This is called social impoverishment, where a family of husband and wife and seven or eight children live in a single room. Can you imagine the social decay such a situation can lead to?"

A newspaper editor:

"Living standards have definitely deteriorated. I hear it from the women, who do the shopping all the time. It is especially true of the middle classes. There is frustration. The increase in the price of construction material has made the real-estate prices soar. No one can find an apartment to live in. You tell me this is all normal, it is the capitalist mechanism. But you cannot hear about someone who makes $40 billion (LE 220 billion), and then you ask a young person to work for LE 400 per month. If you have a million pounds, you are now considered poor. I live in a rented apartment because I cannot afford to buy an apartment, although I am not considered poor."

A historian and activist:

"Sometimes things do look hopeless. Look at the health sector and the educational sector. They have deteriorated so much. Egyptians pay LE 10 billion to private tutors every year. I find that investment in education is very important. Although the dividend is not immediate, just imagine what it would be like if the educational system was much better and graduates actually knew their material. We would export professionals to the Arab world. Unfortunately, our certificates are no longer recognized."

A retired grandfather:

"I have five daughters and one son. All the girls were married and living with their husbands, but the youngest got divorced a year ago and is now living with us together with her three children. She does not work, but sometimes gets a job altering dresses and then we have enough to get us through a day or two. My son is married and lives with us. I had to agree. His mother and I gave up our room: He lives in it with his wife and two kids. My wife and I, together with my daughter and her kids, sleep in the living room. We get by, al-hamdulillah [thanks be to God]. My son is a good craftsman, but is moody sometimes. He keeps quitting jobs, so one month he makes money and two or three months he does not. We have to make this pension last, which is becoming more and more difficult every day. Prices are increasing all the time. The money is barely enough to keep us eating bread."