Statistics: More than 75% of Bulgarians are having difficulties to cover daily expenses

More than 75% of the people in Bulgaria have difficulties to cover their daily expenses, according to data from the National Statistical Institute’s supplementary survey to the Household Budget Monitoring under the project "Income and Living Conditions". A total of 5,703 persons aged 16 and over from 3,056 households were surveyed.

38.4% of the persons find close to difficult, 26.1% find it difficult and 12.3% find very difficult to cover daily expenses. The proportion of individuals finding it very difficult decreased compared to Q1 and Q2, but increased by 1.5 percentage points compared to Q3 2022.

19.2% of individuals are able to cover their daily expenses relatively easily, while only 4.0% have no difficulty at all. Overall, the share of persons with no difficulties in the fourth quarter increased by 0.8 percentage points compared to the third quarter and by 1.5 percentage points compared to the first quarter of 2022, NSI reports.

The relative share of households with unchanged incomes remains high

In the fourth quarter of 2022, the household income for 67.8% of the people remained unchanged compared to the past 12 months. This share decreased by more than 5 percentage points from the first and second quarters, but is still significant.

26.7% of the people said there was an increase in their income, which is by 1.2 percentage points less than in the third quarter and 8.2 percentage points more than in the first quarter of 2022, when 18.5% of the persons had an increase.

The main reasons for the rises in the income in all four quarters were increases in the size of pensions and social benefits and wage indexation.

A decrease in income over the past 12 months was pointed by 5.5% of the individuals, which is up by 0.7 percentage points compared to the third quarter and down by 3.0 percentage points compared to the first quarter of 2022.