According to the State Statistics Service, when assessing their material wealth, mere 1 percent of Ukrainian households identified themselves as middle class, which is extremely low. This was stated by OPPOSITION PLATFORM – FOR LIFE MP Serhiy Lovochkin.

He said that the 2020 report on “Households’ income self-assessment” features a blank line next to the “wealthy” category. This means that less than 0.1 percent of Ukrainians identify themselves as well-off.

“Mere 1 percent of Ukrainian families self-identified as middle class when assessing their material standing. Most of households, 67.1 percent, consider themselves poor. This indicates that the administration fails to fulfill its responsibilities to fight poverty. This results from unprofessional economic management, total absence of state support for basic economy sectors, stagnation of loaning, and rise in prices for foods, services, transport, and housing,” Lovochkin said.

As of 2020, mere 1.6 percent of Ukrainians said their material standing improved over the year, 4.4 percent of households said it “rather improved.” More than 43 percent of Ukrainians felt no changes, 29.5 percent checked “rather worsened,” and 21.2 percent said their material situation “worsened.”

“The poverty of Ukrainian citizens is one of the gravest threats to national security, and the problem must be solved on the highest level, but the government ignores the matter,” the opposition politician said.

According to him, the government must review its rate setting policy, lower VAT for food staples, and adopt a program on increasing citizens’ incomes.

“Our faction has drafted real proposals; when adopted, they will stop crisis in the economy and increase social protection of citizens,” Lovochkin said.