The Sofia Echo ran a short but hard hitting article on poverty in Bulgaria this morning.  The title is a "<a href="http://www.sofiaecho.com/article/quarter-of-bulgaria-s-households-live-on-verge-of-poverty/id_34176/catid_66" target="_blank">Quarter of Bulgaria's households live on verge of poverty.</a>" The numbers are stark.  A new report states that a family of four needs <span>1895 leva a month to cover basic expenses. </span><span>They write, "this would roughly make 474 leva a person " (or in US dollars $310).
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The thing that is striking is that at my school beginning teachers only make 350 leva a month.  That's nearly 125 leva less per month than it is estimated they need.  <span>Moreover, apparently only "15.2 % of Bulgarian families live with more than 450 leva a person monthly allowance." It's almost hard to believe that these numbers are correct.
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<span>These statistics beg the question: what are the other 85% of the Bulgarian population doing? How are they living? </span>

<span>The answer seems to be not well.  The cost of living has apparently increased over the last year.  Food prices have risen nearly 7%, heating and electricity rates are up 12% and rent/home maintenance costs have also risen by this year by 16%.  These numbers make the situation in Bulgaria look pretty bleak.
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<span>As if this weren't enough inflation also hit the country hard in 2008.  Inflation was apparently 12% last year in Bulgaria.  To put this in perspective, the </span><span>average inflation rate in the EU was 3.7%. </span>

<span>What was the most eye opening to me was this number: </span><span>185 leva.  Apparently this the amount of money that one needs each month to "physically survive."  Frankly I don't know what this number is counting but it seems like an impossible task to me.  As of today, the exchange rate would make this $121 US dollars. </span>

<span>I knew that things were bad but this is shocking to me. </span>

<span>The interesting thing is--I am not sure what the solution to this problem is.  And I haven't been able to get the situation out of my head all day.
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