New poverty records in LT

“New bad news about us – after calculating the time it takes to earn one US dollar, Lithuania has been rated as the poorest country in the EU.

 

Referencing the Luxembourg Times, Verslo žinios announced last week that according to O. Stercks’ average poverty methodology, in order to earn a US dollar last year, it took almost 21 minutes to work in Luxembourg, and 76.4 minutes in Lithuania.

 

It turned out that Lithuania is 3.6 times poorer than Luxembourg and three times poorer than the Netherlands (it took 24 minutes to earn a dollar here), Germany (26 minutes), Belgium (27 minutes) and Cyprus (30 minutes). Even Estonians and Poles are significantly ahead of us.

 

It is not surprising that the poverty risk level in Lithuania in 2025 reached 22.6 percent – ​​1.1 percent more than in 2024. Last year, 653 thousand of the country's population lived below the poverty line. And this is in a country where the national stadium is being built for hundreds of millions, where the national concert hall is being built for 121 million euros, where there are almost 550 state-run public institutions and tens of thousands of redundant positions in the public sector.

 

From these numbers, it would seem that we are a country full of wealth, but, look at them, there are more and more poor people every year.

 

All this shows that our government, which is chaotically plugging holes, is managing poorly. And the further, the worse. It's ridiculous that the state, having raised old-age pensions by a modest 12 percent, has not taken sufficient care of seniors, who make up the lion's share of that 653 thousand. It's ridiculous that labor productivity continues to fall dangerously. That government sector expenses are increasing faster than revenues are collected. That public money is constantly being wasted pointlessly on duplicative functions, irrelevant programs or projects. Finally, that funds are being used inefficiently and that the budget is paying pig salaries not for results, but for shitty nothing.

 

P. S. When are we going to the rally again? After all, there are no more important things to do now.”