ABSTRACT
In Romania poverty is a cruel reality, the signs of which are increasingly obvious. It is in part a heritage of the Communist regime (especially of its last years), but it is also a result of the sharp drop in living standards during transition. One can observe two important dimensions of poverty, which cause problems for those who wish to establish or use a poverty line. The first is ‘mass poverty’, where a very high proportion of the population can be described as poor according to a given poverty line. This type of poverty describes the circumstances of the majority of the population, who cannot meet their basic needs according to the accepted standards in the country. Second, there is also a proportion of the population whose living standard is much worse. In Romania where so many are poor according to the usual definitions, these extremely poor people are in fact the ‘real’ poor of our society.
