Ukrainians spend over 50% of their income on food and utility bills

Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - 21:36 (EEST) Section: Latest news

Ukrainian people spend more than half of their income on food and utility bills, with their share in population`s total expenses having grown to almost 58% in the first quarter of 2016 as compared to 52% in the previous year, the State Statistics Service reported.
Food expenses accounted for 41.5% of total household expenses in Q1 2016, up from 37.7% in the previous year. Utility expenses accounted for 16.4% of total expenses, up from 14.7% in 2015.
The share of other expenses, namely, transportation costs decreased to 8.7% from 10.2%, and the share of alcohol and cigarettes shrank to 6.3% of total expenses, down from 7%. Clothing and footwear accounted for 3.9% of total expenses, down from 4.2%. Expenses on home appliances accounted for 3.3% of total expenses, down from 3.8%. Health care expenses made up 6% of total expenses, down from 6.3%.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the Ministry of Social Policy projects that the number of households in need of state subsidies will grow in the current year from 5.5 million people to 8.9 million people in the aftermath of the decision made by the Ukrainian government to introduce a single gas price for all categories of consumers starting from May 1.
In January-May 2016, the amount of subsidies allocated for Ukrainian households to cover housing and utility expenses grew almost tenfold to UAH 2.3 billion as compared to the same period in 2015.
Since the beginning of the year, from January through May, consumer prices in Ukraine rose by 5.2%. In annual terms, inflation in May 2016 slowed down to 7.5% year-over-year from 9.8% recorded in the previous month.