Tabaku stated that, “The DP has presented the living wage the living wage bill for several legislatures in a row, but on the other hand it has also been a request that we have forwarded every time the budget has been approved”.

‘The Albanian government, of the left-wing, as a matter of fact, in the 13th year of its governance mandate cannot yet provide a living wage for its citizens’, Tabaku stressed.

She underlined that 40% of the family expenses today go for food.

“If food prices were 20% of those of the European Union in 2012, today they go up to 92% of the EU prices”, Tabaku said.

“Today, the pensioners are the poorest strata”, said Tabaku, as she added that, “The government once again refuses to raise pensions with this budget”.

The DP MP underlined that, “Following the approval of the budget, the DP will forward this legal proposal once again. It will do so because it considers it a moral obligation towards the citizens. It will also be an obligation towards all those who expect this Parliament to adopt laws in their support”.

“The legal proposal for the living wage will place Albania on the map of countries that have this. “The countries in the region have a living wage and other EU countries also have it,” said Tabaku, who added that, “It is also possible for the budget to have the living wage.” /gj.m/a.f/p.s./

The risk indicator for being poor in Albania in 2019 is 23.0%, experiencing a decrease of 0.4 points compared to 2018 and 0.7 points, compared to 2017.

Poverty indicators in the Income and Living Standards Survey are based on the relative concept of poverty, which takes into account disposable household income, number of family members (family size) and income distribution among population groups .

The risk limit of being poor for a person in 2019 is estimated at about 17000 ALL, compared to 16000 ALL that was in 2018 and 14500 ALL that was in 2017.

In 2019, there were estimated about 659,000 individuals living below the risk threshold of being poor, compared to about 671,000 individuals estimated in 2018. This indicates that the overall level of disposable household income has increased and the number of individuals at risk to be poor has decreased by about 1.8%./p.s./