Weekly Report - 03 November 2016 (WR-16-43)

COSTA RICA | Poverty declines. Poverty fell to its lowest level in seven years, the national statistics institute (Inec) revealed last week after releasing the results of the 2016 national household survey. A total of 20.5% of Costa Rican households are living in poverty, Inec found. Not since 2009, when 18.5% of households were living in poverty, has the figure been as low as this. When President Luis Guillermo Solís took office in 2014, a total of 22.4% of households were living in poverty, a figure which fell to 21.7% last year, before declining to 20.5% this year (see sidebar).