Poverty as a factor in lowering the quality of life in the Republic of Kazakhstan

Abstract

Poverty is the most urgent problem in modern society. Poverty has a negative impact on the economic development of the country, leading to sustainable structural imbalances in the labor market, violates the economic and social cohesion, reduces the amount of savings of the population. At the same time, the fight against poverty must be based on the formation of a socially-oriented state, on ensuring a guaranteed level of incomes for the able-bodied population, access to education, health care, and culture. The need for statistical observation of the level of poverty and differentiation of the incomes of the population is due to the high social and economic significance of this problem. In Kazakhstan, the official poverty line is set at the level of the subsistence minimum, which is determined on the basis of normative and statistical data: a minimum set of food products, expenditures on non-food products and services, and other mandatory payments. The article explores the concept of poverty, its types, as well as indicators of poverty assessment in Kazakhstan. The scale of this problem in Kazakhstan is determined. Different criteria for assessing and measuring poverty as one of their most important indicators of the quality of life of the population are considered. Based on the data of national statistics, the analysis and assessment of the real scale of poverty was made, the indicators of the subsistence minimum and the consumer basket in the republic were examined.