Economy
The rate of poverty reduction as measured by income has dropped in recent years. The inflationary spiral has undermined the purchasing power of Venezuelan households, and only a few managed to overcome social exclusion last year.

According to the preliminary data provided by Elías Eljuri, the head of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), at the end of the second half of 2008, poverty hit 26 percent of households, which represents a fall of 2.5 percentage points compared to the previous result.

In previous years, year-on-year reduction of poverty was much higher. For instance, between 2004 and 2005, the decline was almost 10 percentage points, from 47 percent to 37.9 percent. However, the pace of poverty reduction began to slow down progressively and in 2006 poverty dropped to 30.6 percent, while at the end of 2007, the reduction of poverty was 2.1 percent, a rate that remained unchanged at the end of 2008.

Suhelis Tejero Puntes
EL UNIVERSAL