ABSTRACT
Poverty and inequality were considered a political taboo in Romania. The first comprehensive analysis of poverty and inequality was released in 1995, providing an overview of the work of the Research Institute for the Quality of Life team. Social benefits only to a lesser degree replaced the diminished contribution of wages to the household budget. After 1990 Romania faced two tendencies: on the one hand, huge social costs, and, on the other hand, decreasing funding available for social protection. The chapter focuses on the economic activity of household members and concentrates on income, income inequality and poverty. Households from the first income decile also have fewer wage-earners, with much lower wages compared to households from the tenth decile. During the entire 1995-2004 period, the average wage per wage-earner from the poorest households was more than three times lower than the average wage per wage-earner from the affluent households.
