by MARIO QUEIROZ
An eatery in Lisbon offers cheap “troika” lunches to weather the crisis. PHOTO/Katalin Muharay/IPS
LISBON, Jan 25 2013 (IPS) – Poverty in Portugal has risen to levels that were unimaginable a year ago despite the bleak outlook forecasted by the harsh measures imposed by the troika of creditors in exchange for the country’s financial bailout.
Unable to pay their bills or even meet basic food needs, thousands of families are facing dire times and turning increasingly to charities for assistance. Many do so secretly, however, ashamed to admit they have to resort to such means to get by.
The phenomenon has become so widespread that the impoverished middle class is starting to be known as the “embarrassed poor”.
This new poverty, caused by unemployment and the inability to repay bank loans, is also driving up the number of suicides, according to reports by Caritas, Food Bank and other social solidarity organisations.
According to figures from the National Statistics Institute, in 2012 a fifth of all Portuguese were living on less than 478 dollars a month, well under the minimum wage established by law at 644 dollars a month and 14 salaries a year.
In June 2012, a year after the troika – comprised of the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) – stepped in with a bailout package, soup kitchens have sprung up across Lisbon, bringing back the “sopa dos pobres” served out by Catholic organisations to feed the poor in the 1950s.
Today long lines of people can again be seen queuing outside charity centres waiting to receive their only hot meal of the day.
Inter Press Service for more