Ioana Ionescu is 18 years old. Her father left her mother, with whom she had two young children, Ioana and Adriana. Ioana’s mother, Mrs. Ionescu, first worked in a furniture factory, where she earned little. That was until the factory closed, after which Mrs. Ionescu left the village in search of work. At that time, Ioana was 7 years old, and Adriana was 6 years old. The girls were left in the care of their grandmother. Working illegally in Spain, my mother did not return home for a very long time, but sent money to her family. When Adriana was 15 years old, she committed suicide.

The case is real and appears in the report of a well-known charity that tried to help the family.

Another case: a couple lives on the outskirts of the city. Both partners are unemployed and survive thanks to social workers and the help they receive. The house I live in needs urgent repairs. Mr. Nelu Popescu extends his healthy hand to greet us. The other hand is bandaged and the social worker says it will probably be amputated because the man refused the doctor even though he was offered treatment. Inside we meet Eva Popska, his wife.

The day before, he received social assistance, but alcohol was used for it. The couple tells the social worker that they don’t buy food and that they got enough firewood. There is no electricity, gas or even water in the house. The toilet is a wooden shack in an overgrown garden. There is only a plate and a pan in the room. None of them can cook.

When asked about the photo hanging above the bed, Nelu said it was their 12-year-old boy, Petru, who had been taken by the Child Protective Services. His father gets very angry when he talks about him; just a day ago he had been talking to the people who are taking care of the boy to try to get him home. Eva suffers from depression after the boy is taken from them and her hair starts to fall out.(And this case is real and appears in the report of a well-known charity that tried to help the family)

Maria Serhiivna, 46 years old, mother of two children, one of whom, Maryana, has a severe form of disability. “My husband and I are both hard-working people, but I can’t leave the house because I have to take care of the children and my husband has a tumor on his spine that has been affecting him for several weeks.” Maryana was diagnosed when he was 6 months old. Sirarpa had to stay with him all the time to care for him until 2008, when she started taking him to a care center for disabled children. Maria could use her free time for work.

Since Maryana’s schedule is 3 days a week, she could not find a permanent job. But, knowing how to sew, she decided to borrow materials from the workshop and make bedspreads. When Maryan is at home, his mother can make one set, and when he is at the center, she can sew four sets. “It’s very difficult for us, especially when one of us gets sick and we need medicine or worse, we have to go to the hospital.” Maria recently got asthma and has to take medicine regularly.

But he cannot afford it and relies on all kinds of herbs given to him by a certain local medicine man. Her chest hurts, but she refuses to go to the doctor. “We can’t afford it, why should I go if I can’t pay for the treatment he’s going to give me?” (a real case that appears in the report of a well-known charitable organization) .

Poverty is related to hardship, not income

Sometimes our understanding of poverty is wrong. Looking ONLY at economic indicators, poverty is a simple threshold that can be removed with remittances.

Is this what we mean by poverty? Johnson himself did not think so. US President Lyndon Johnson, in his speech declaring an unconditional war on poverty, said: “Too often the lack of work and money is not the cause of poverty, but a symptom of it.”

Poverty is not only about money, but also about inadequate housing, lack of food security, unmet medical needs, or lack of opportunities to demonstrate what you are capable of in life.

Matthew Desmond, a Princeton sociologist and author of Poverty in America, says, “Poverty is a measure of the difficulties we face in life. We should measure them, not necessarily the level of salaries.”

“Poverty isn’t just about how low your salary is, it’s about how healthy you are or how safe your homes are,” he says.

What do the data of the National Institute of Statistics, published the other day, say

• The relative poverty rate in 2022 was 21.2%. The number of poor is more than 4 million Romanians

• In Romania, every fifth resident lived in a family that is considered poor.

• The highest level of poverty is observed among children under the age of 18 and young people aged 18-24.

• The most pronounced gender difference is found in the age group of 65 years and older, a characteristic that persists throughout the analyzed period, in 2022 women reached poverty levels 7.6 percentage points higher than men (the maximum of the registration period is in 2019 year, when it was 13.1 percentage points).

• The poverty rate was more than 8.9 times higher in the Oltenia region than in the Bucharest-Ilfov region.

• In 2022, the highest poverty rate was recorded in South-West Oltenia (34.7%), South-East (28.4%) and North-East (26.2%) regions, and the highest in Bucharest-Ilfov (3 .9%).

• Poverty is more common among people living in households with children (it reached 23.5% in 2022) than in the case of those living in households without children (18.3% in the same year).

• Among households with dependent children, households with 2 adults with 3 or more children were the most affected by poverty in 2022 (40.4%), followed by households with 3 or more adults with children (26.3%) and those with 2 adults with 2 dependent children (24.8%).

• Among single-parent families with at least one child, 23.8% were poor. In comparison, households consisting of 2 adults and 1 dependent child were less affected by poverty.

• Single people are more at risk of poverty, especially women (32.7% compared to 25.9% for men). Also, single people get poorer as they age: single people under 65 have a poverty rate of 27.1%, while the proportion of those aged 65 and over is 32.1%.

• A slight increase in the risk of poverty is observed in households consisting of one man (by 1.4 per cent) and single persons under the age of 65 (by 0.5 per cent).

• If pensions and other social benefits were not paid in 2022, almost half of the population (45.0%) would be below the relative poverty line, and the situation would obviously worsen for the elderly (65 years and older), who account for 84 .8%, would be in a state of relative poverty. The same situation would exist among people aged 55-64, but in a smaller proportion, 51.5%.