Venezuela, under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez and as a result of the Bolivarian Revolution, has seen a marked improvement in the living conditions of working-class people in the country, according to a newly released report on the nation’s poverty rate.
Statistics from the National Census of Population and Housing, collected from across Venezuela note that rates of extreme poverty have been reduced by almost half in the last 10 years. In 2001, the percentage of Venezuela’s population considered to be in extreme poverty was at 11.36 percent. The latest figure, culled from the 2011 census, indicate the number nosedived to 6.97 percent.
The most recent reports also show significant improvements in critical overcrowding, as well as leaps in water and sewage access and home improvement.
Many of these improvements are a direct result of Chavez administration policies, which put poor and working people at the center of social policy. Since his rise to the presidency, Chavez has made eradicating poverty key to his agenda, along with making major improvements to education access, health care for all Venezuelans and democratizing a country whose most disenfranchised communities struggled with very little resources and uncertain futures.
These ambitious efforts appear to be paying dividends for the nation’s people. The latest census shows Venezuela is seeing a rise in life expectancy, an overall decrease in poverty, access to better jobs, and economic equality for women. As a result, Venezuela has seen the greatest decrease in poverty in the last decade in all of South America, and boasts the lowest rate of inequality in the region.
Opponents of President Chavez have already branded the findings politically motivated and misleading. Some have suggested the National Institute of Statistics used faulty or otherwise inadequate research to come to the current conclusions.
However, many countries acknowledge the successes of Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution in seeking to improve the lives of everyday Venezuelans. This is why the Bolivarian Revolution continues to enjoy overwhelming support among the most oppressed sectors of society. The approach of the Chavez administration, which put the people’s needs first, has shown what a country’s concerted effort to address the needs of working people and the poor can create.
