POVERTY IN BULGARIA: DIMENSIONS, POLICIES AND ANALYSES

The article discusses poverty in Bulgaria through the prism of the correspondence between the unfavorable wellbeing rates, the implemented policy’s measures and the state of analyses in the field. By presenting existing national and EU comparative statistics, analyzing policy documents and outlining limits and prevailing bias in the scientific research on the subject, it argues that the three aspects are functionally consistent and that overcoming the high levels of poverty in the country needs reconsidered and mobilizing actions aimed at: a) better consistency among policies in different fields (economic, social, tax, insurance, labor market, environmental, etc.); and b) knowledge-based development focused on adequate addressing of structural generators of poverty.


Introduction
Poverty is a serious and persistent problem of Bulgarian society. Since joining the European Union in 2007, repeated comparative Eurostat statistics depicts high negative values of almost all significant indicators of well-being in the country and they also significantly contribute to the unfavourable averages of the Union as a whole.
Although some progress has been made within the years -the share of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion was 44.8% in 2008 decreasing to 32.5% in 2019 (Eurostat 2020g) -poverty in the country remains quite high and the highest in the EU as is proved by the share of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion in EU in 2019 (see Graph 1).
Following the general EU guidelines within the so-called Open method of coordination, Bulgaria implements some policy measures to tackle poverty issues. However the overall effect remains quite marginal. This article discusses poverty in Bulgaria on the basis of а) review of its various dimensions; b) assessment of policies undertaken, and c) questioning the policies' knowledge-base. The conclusion presents some policy proposals and recommendations for improvement.

Various dimensions of poverty in Bulgaria
Some dimensions of poverty in the country illustrate the main problems of the socio-economic situation. They also outline important directions for the necessary political actions to overcome a series of problems in the well-being of Bulgarian citizens. This section outlines main features of poverty in Bulgaria, as illustrated by the adopted EU indicators: a) high relative poverty rate; b) high levels of material deprivation; c) high share of working poor; d) high child poverty rate; e) high poverty rate among elderly; f) deep poverty pockets.

a) Relative poverty
Relative poverty, referred to as at-risk-of-poverty rate, is adopted as the official poverty line within the EU and is measured as the share of the population with incomes below 60% of the median equivalised income 2 . As the name suggests, it measures poverty in relation to inequality insofar as its threshold indicates a distance from the incomes of other groups in society.
The available data show that Bulgaria has maintained the at-risk-of poverty rate relatively steady and even increasing and also clearly higher in comparison with EU average and different EU member-states over the years. Table 1 shows at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers.
It needs to be pointed out that this is the country's EU decade, in which anti-poverty strategies and policies addressing the at-risk-of-poverty rate have been periodically officially declared and implemented. Such policies are discussed in the next section.

b) Material and social deprivation
Starting from 2014 a new EU indicator of material and social deprivation (based on 13 items) replaced the standard material deprivation indicator which the EU adopted in 2009 (defined as the proportion of people living in households confronted with at least three out of 9 deprivations). Although the data show positive dynamics over the years (decreasing from 52.4% in 2014 to 33.6% in 2019), Bulgaria is second in the share of people (33.6%) in material and social deprivation in the EU and at a significant distance from the EU average (12.1%) as illustrated by the material and social deprivation rate in EU in 2019 (see Graph 2).
Moreover, in terms of the share of people in severe material deprivation 3 with the value of 19.9% in 2019, the country is the first in the EU (Eurostat 2020i).

c) Share of the working poor
The rate of the working poor has been increasing since 2013 (see Graph 3). The material and social deprivation rate of employees (16 years or over) is 21.5% in 2019 and by this indicator Bulgaria is third in the EU, after Romania with a rate of 24.5% and Greece respectively of 23.1% (Eurostat 2020f).

d) Child poverty
Around one third of Bulgarian children (less than 18 years old) live in poverty or social exclusion, the value being again the second highest after Romania as shown by the rate of children at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion in EU in 2019 (see Graph 4).
Around one fifth of Bulgarian children live in extremely unfavorable conditions which will undoubtedly have long-term negative consequences both for them and for the whole society in the future. e) Poverty among elderly Another group disproportionately affected by poverty is that of the elderly. Especially pronounced is the material and social deprivation among the retired people that affects more than 50% of them. Table 2 depicts the material and social deprivation rate of retired people. At the same time 29.1% of retired people live in severe material deprivation (Eurostat 2020j) and their survival is at risk. f) Groups at risk and poverty pockets A publication of the National Statistical Institute on Indicators of Poverty and Social inclusion in 2019 (NSI, 2019) provides further data in this regard: -Depending on the labour market inclusion, the share of people in poverty is highest among the unemployed (58.9%) and the risk of poverty for unemployed males is with 14.2 percentage points higher than that of the unemployed females; -The risk of falling into poverty for part-time workers is approximately four times higher than that for full-time workers; -The level of education influences the risk of in-work poverty. The highest is the relative share of the working poor with primary and no education -55.5%; the relative share of the poor among the working population decreases more than seven times for persons with secondary education and the share of the working poor with higher education is 2.5%; face unexpected expenses, iv) eat meat, fish or a protein equivalent every second day, v) a week holiday away from home, vi) a car, vii) a washing machine, viii) a colour TV, or ix) a telephone. The indicator is part of the multidimensional poverty index.
-The share of working poor males is a little bit higher (9.7%) than that of the females (8.2%); -According to the type of household -the highest is the relative share of the poor among one-member households over the age of 65, single parents with children, as well as households with three or more children; -There is a long-established ethnic selectivity: in 2019, the highest relative share of the poor is among the people who self-identify themselves as Roma -64.8%, and the lowest share -among the people who self-identify themselves as belonging to the Bulgarian ethnic group -16.7%; -Among the poor people from the Bulgarian ethnic group, retirees predominate (55.2%), while among the poor people from the Roma ethnic group the relative share of the unemployed is the highest (36.6%); -The regional disparities are also growing. Following these lines, deep poverty pockets are established in the country with more than one fourth of the population reporting unaffordability of adequate eating (27.6%) and of keeping homes adequately warm (30.1%) that affect health and will probably have longterm unfavourable consequences. This is further enhanced by the poverty persistence and its transmission from a generation to a generation. Data on persistent at-risk-of-poverty rate 4 depict also higher levels than the EU average and in 2019 Bulgaria is on fourth place with a value of 16.1% after Lithuania -19,2%, Romania -16,8% and Estonia -16,7% (Eurostat 2020h).
Summarizing poverty in Bulgaria is characterised by its wide distribution, persistence and depth of certain poverty pockets.

Policies undertaken
In the 90s of the last century and the beginning of the first decade of this century, the problems of poverty, despite its wide scope, were largely marginalized and when discussed were basically considered as a result of individual failures. There was little or no political attention to poverty issues. Public discussions were overwhelmed by the apologetics of so-called neoliberalism and the "invisible hand of the market". Some well-established political tools, such as official calculations on incomes necessary for survival were abandoned. With the EU integration of the country a shift in the political efforts took place. An official poverty line was adopted in 2007, following EU guidelines and measuring poverty as a share of the population with an income below 60% of equivalised median income. Gradually, coherent national poverty reduction strategies started to be elaborated as well as national action plans for their implementation, official statistics on poverty and social exclusion expanded and improved providing comparative basis with the other EU Member States. National bodies were set up also, that include various stakeholders, e.g. National Consultative Council for Social Inclusion at the Council of Ministers.
Currently, on 31. 12. 2020, the Council of Ministers adopted a new National Strategy for Poverty Reduction and Promotion of Social Inclusion with a horizon until 2030. It is intended to outline a strategic framework for the development of policies related to poverty reduction and promotion of social inclusion in the next decade. It is assumed that "the main goal of the planned measures and activities is to improve the quality of life of vulnerable groups and create conditions for their full realization through adequate income support, labour market inclusion and access to quality services". According to the Strategy's vision (p. 28) "By 2030, Bulgaria is a country in which social inequalities and poverty are limited and prerequisites and conditions for inclusive and sustainable growth and opportunities for improving the quality of life of vulnerable groups are created. " It is envisaged that any government policyhealth, social, educational, etc. will aim to reduce poverty or inequality in society.
However, this political document also retains the logic of the previous years based on "adapting social inclusion policies and ensuring the sustainability of the results achieved" (op. cit. p. 8).
There are essentially no measures and/or clear envisaged tools to reduce inequalities in terms of distributive and redistributive policies, although various stakeholders -trade unions, civil society organizations -undertake various campaigns in this direction: for adequate minimum incomes, for progressive taxation, etc. It is not clear either how the promised equal access to education and health will be achieved.
Following the already established practices, Bulgaria continues to implement two main pillars of anti-poverty policies: a) active labour market policies; and b) social assistance. a) For years already, the public policies' emphasis has been on active labour market policies, without any attention to the quality of jobs. The logic is that employment provides opportunities to get out of poverty. However data depicts that in the period 2008 -2019 the working poor have increased by 29 000 people. Although it is well known that the poor quality of jobs and the lack of prospects are the main factors for people, especially young, to leave the country resulting in a very unfavourable demographic situation, there is a clear lack of political attention to salaries/wages in the jobs offered and inequalities within them. Simultaneously the leading political idea that providing any kind of job helps to lift people out of poverty is highly questionable.
Moreover, Bulgaria has a quite high Gini index before social transfers, i.e. within the primary distribution, and in particular within pay inequalities.
A comparison with the Czech Republic, for example, illustrates the high levels of employment polarization in Bulgaria (Jeliazkova, 2019). Table 3 presents the share of employees with salaries/wages as % of the average salary in Bulgaria and Czech Republic.
The high values of the two poles in Bulgaria affect not only the quality of life and well-being of employees, but also have far-reaching consequences for building the human capital of children, for the qualities of the workforce, for the "equality of opportunities".
Due to such social structuring, again in 2019 Bulgaria is the EU country with the highest Gini index before and after the social transfers and by this indicator the country increases its distance from the other EU member states. The fact that this is result of political choices made could be illustrated by comparing Bulgaria and Ireland on the basis of the Gini indexes in Bulgaria and Ireland before and after the social transfers 2010-2019 (see Graph 5).
The Gini index before social transfers reflects different rules and norms introduced by different EU countries that affect the pay gap. Czech Republic for example keeps wage inequalities lower than the EU average over the last 20 years. Up to 2014 Ireland Gini index before social transfers was higher than that of Bulgaria but policies undertaken resulted in its decrease. The progressive taxation and active anti-poverty measures in Ireland, aimed, for example, at families with children, single parent families, elderly and other vulnerable groups support the redistributive effect. On the contrary, Bulgaria is among the EU countries whose public policies in distribution are extremely tense and fragment society in many non-transparent ways.
The Gini index after social transfers reflects the impact of public policies on redistribution processes. This is achieved through enlightened complexes of economic, social, tax, social security and so on policies. Ireland, for example, reduces the Gini index before social transfers by almost 19 percentage points as a result of such policies and falls in this regard under the value of EU average. Despite its relatively lower values in distributive inequalities, the Czech Republic's redistributive policy also reduced further the Gini index by 18.1 percentage points. Maintaining some of the highest inequalities in primary distribution, Bulgaria does not elaborate and implement redistributive policies and by least reducing the Gini index after social transfers remains the country with the highest inequalities in the EU. b) On this basis, the second main pillar of anti-poverty policies in the country is the social assistance, promising effective and targeted financial and material support to those in need. In fact social assistance provides income support at very low levels, inconsistent with the incomes needed for people to survive. Although there is growing evidence of what level of income is needed for a person to survive, there is no formal link between the levels of social assistance and the cost of living.
Already, for quite a long time only a research centre at one of the two official trade unions -the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria -provides data on subsistence levels.
Meanwhile there are already international sources that try to calculate the living wage and the income that a person needs to live normally in numerous countries and Bulgaria is included (Living Wage Indicator, Numbeo). However the refusal to introduce nationally adapted poverty indicators based on adequate consumer basket continues.
Despite numerous reminders from the EU in consistent country-specific recommendations and EU wide campaigns for adequate minimum incomes, the social assistance system in the country remains based on the so-called guaranteed minimum income, which is BGN 75 a month (38.35 Euro), that is below the level of the extreme world poverty indicator of $ 1.9 a day. In addition, people of working age are further sanctioned if they apply to receive social assistance -they receive less than BGN 50 (25.56 Euro) per month and if and only if they agree to perform the so-called community services 14 days a month for 4 hours a day. Thus, social assistance further erodes the otherwise officially introduced minimum monthly wage, which in 2021 is BGN 650 gross (332.34 Euro) and respectively BGN 504 net (257.69 Euro).
The legal definition of the minimum guaranteed income states that it is "legally defined amount, which is used as a basis for determining the social assistance in order to ensure a minimum income to meet the basic living needs of individuals according age, marital status, health status and property" (Social Assistance Act). In practice, the guaranteed minimum income is determined annually by the Council of Ministers "according to the state's financial ability". Thus based on the guaranteed minimum income, differentiated minimum incomes are calculated, different for different categories of people, depending on age, marital status, disability, employment and school attendance. Additionally -there are different targeted allowances (such as targeted assistance for heating; targeted assistance to pay rent; targeted allowance for travel for the elderly; targeted assistance to certain groups of people with disabilities) and one-off benefits (to meet ad hoc health, education, utilities and other vital needs, individuals and families may be granted one-time assistance once a year; for the issuance of identity cards; to cover the costs of subsistence and accommodation for persons and their companions if a permission for treatment abroad is received by the Ministry of Health and when some costs are not included in the cost allocated for the treatment).
Because of the extremely low levels of minimum income schemes, social assistance hardly has any effect on preventing and reducing poverty. The whole system is very fragmented with a case by case design and mainly focused on some support against extreme levels of poverty. But even this minimum target is not achieved -in Bulgaria the social assistance is hardly able to provide even physical survival.
As a result of such developments Bulgaria is also among the EU countries with the slowest progress in reference with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 1 'No poverty' . Additionally, as far as the accepted goal 10 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, related to the reduction of inequalities -"the share of income of the poorest 40% of the population to grow faster than that of other groups" -is concerned, the dynamic is in the opposite direction (Jeliazkova & Minev, 2020), as depicted by the statistical data on the income share of the bottom 40% of the population in Bulgaria 2006-2019 (see Graph 6).

Poverty analyses and knowledge-based policies?
Similar to the political actions, analyses of poverty and social exclusion have been largely marginalized during the first 15 years of transition. Analyses of unemployment, deindustrialization and liberalization, the pressure on social rights, human development index and some social problems were available, but scientific discussions of poverty were to a large extent undesirable and considered through the ideological bias as opposed to the ideas of market and democracy.
With the EU integration of the country and the expansion of the comparative poverty statistics, ideological pressure somehow diminished and national analyses and research grew in number, including those related to different problems of poverty, its different dimensions and manifestations, and the focus on different groups vulnerable to poverty. Simultaneously Bulgarian actors and organizations established contacts and became part of various EU wide networks (for example, EuroChild, European Anti-Poverty Network, etc.) and comparative research on specific issues emerged. The introduction of an official poverty line, the 2010 as the European Year against Poverty, the intensification of trade union activities, the establishment of various bodies related to poverty issues, such as the National Economic and Social Committee, stimulated the implementation of various studies and analyses.
Despite such positive developments, some weaknesses of existing analyses and research could be also outlined.
A) It could be said that the descriptive nature is highly predominant in large part of the analyses. Both the national statistics and the empirical sociological surveys' results, as well as the comparative research between Bulgaria and the other EU member states, including the average values in the EU, are an extremely important basis for summaries and conclusions, as well as for developing proposals for changes. At the same time, the fragmented data, the lack of developed adequate nationally adapted definitions, indicators and data related to cost of living make it difficult to have a clear and reliable picture of poverty.
B) An important feature of data and analyses is the emphasis on poverty accompanying factors -such as level of education, employment and labor market status, composition and structure of households, settlement, ethnic selectivity, age, etc. This contributes to the fragmentation of groups and case by case or program by program assessments, but makes it difficult to develop theoretical and practical perspectives through which to significantly reduce poverty levels, which otherwise is the declared goal of policies and the meaning of research and analysis.
Although these accompanying factors are an important part of the picture of poverty in the country, discussing them as the main causes of poverty and marginalization speaks about specific selectivity of the research topics rather than gradual autonomous upgrading of research and analyses. In fact, this leads to white spots and missing indicators in research fields and limits the ability to upgrade already developed proposals and their scientific discussions.
C) There is a lack of data on some important indicators, such as subsistence poverty line; purchasing power of different incomes; inequalities within certain groups like Roma, men, women, inequalities 90/10; inequalities 99/1; wealth concentration, etc. Such lack of data does not provide a sufficient basis for further upgrading of research and analyses. D) There are not enough scientific evaluations on the consistency of anti-poverty policies with other types of policies -such as economic, energy, environmental, financial, regional and agricultural. E) At the same time, available poverty analyses and proposals based on them do not find a sufficient place either in scientific discussions, nor are they applied in the implemented policies. Thus the possibilities for scientific analyses on important issues are rather restricted. An example of this is the fact that the current scientific programs (adopted in 2018) that claim to create conditions for searching and finding solutions to current and significant social challenges do not address wellbeing issues 5 . Despite the fact that Bulgaria is clearly among the countries with the most unfavorable levels in most indicators of well-being these challenges have not been turned into priority scientific questions, at least as far as the national research programs are concerned.
F) In addition, there seems to exist a demotivating effect as long as there are no clear mechanisms for translating scientific results into practical actions. The lack of independent assessments of the situation and of the implemented policies, as well as the lack of the so-called participatory action research, with the participation of the interested people and stakeholders, discourages scientific research into these problems.
G) The main result of such a combination of mostly descriptive analyses, emphasis on the already mentioned accompanying factors, fragmented assessment on different labor market measures and social assistance schemes, knowledge restrictions through financial and implementation flows limits the knowledge on the main poverty generators and how they should be addressed.
Following the prevailing bias it seems that the dimensions of poverty in Bulgaria, the policies implemented and to some extent the quality of analyses are in functional correspondence and somehow they support each other.

Conclusion and policy recommendations
Bulgaria has quite severe problems with poverty and social exclusion, with the deep marginalization of certain groups and poverty persistence through its transfer from a generation to a generation. As illustrated in the first part of this article, the policy measures undertaken do not contribute significantly to overcoming poverty and social exclusion in the country. In this regard, the inadequacy of available political measures needs to be recognized and instead to adapt existing policies, they have to be radically revised. An important reason for this is that although rarely discussed, the main generators of poverty in the country are a series of policies -economic, financial, educational, health, tax and social security policies, and the relationships between them. On this basis, certain aspects of social policy do try to mitigate the unfavorable processes caused by other policies and act as a last resort by supporting people with lowest incomes and providing extremely low level of benefits.
In order to overcome these problems, a clear consistency between the different policies is needed, based on adequate welfare and wellbeing indicators and aimed at poverty generators and pro-poor development. In this regard, a targeted review, analysis and evaluation of various policies should be carried out and independent social impact assessments could contribute to decisive improvements in all phases of the policy cycle (agenda setting, goals and aims identification, developing adequate policy instruments for their achievement, implementation of these instruments, constant monitoring and introduction of improvements, evaluations and scientific analysis how to address poverty generators).
A move from policy-driven knowledge to knowledge-based policies could provide holistic, integrated and people-oriented development with adequate anti-poverty actions.