Skopje, 28 February 2023 (MIA) – An additional 13,000 people, of which 5,000 children, fell below the poverty line in the country in 2022 as a result of the crisis, showed the study “The Effects of the Food and Energy Crisis on Children and Families in North Macedonia”, created by the Economic Research and Policy Institute Finance Think, in cooperation with the UNICEF Office in Skopje, and presented Tuesday.

This study, according to Marjan Petreski from Finance Think, shows that the crisis has a greater impact on children than other population groups.

“We have found that children are additionally vulnerable when they live in households with more than three children, and where the parents’ level of education is lower. This is important so that policy measures can be appropriately targeted,” said Petreski.

The assessment of the effect of the government measures showed that they mitigated 30 to 60 percent of the impact of the crisis, depending on the indicator and the population group taken into account.

However, Petreski stressed, this is not a small effect. The negative aspect is that the majority of the measures were linear, which means that in the conditions of a narrow fiscal space that is undergoing further narrowing, that linear component would also have to be further reduced, said Petreski.

The study determined the need for additional measures that would be strictly targeted, i.e., would assist the parts of the population that need it the most.

“The assessment shows that the effect of the crisis continues, the crisis is not over and will be present during the year, but the intensity is decreasing as a result of the mild stabilization of prices and a certain level of compensation that will result from the increase in nominal income, based on the announcements of an increase of the minimum wage, adjustment of pensions, social assistance…,” said Petreski. ad/nn/

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