Redhead Rambles

Today, the median salary is less than SYP 16,000 ($150 at current rates). Some estimates put it between SYP 13,000 ($277) and SYP 13,500 ($287). However, the cost of basic goods has soared by more than 300 percent. A family of five now has to make three times what it used to before the crisis, needing a monthly fixed salary between SYP 95,000 ($905) and SYP 126,000 ($1,200) to sustain its basic needs. Eighty percent of Syrians do not make more than SYP 30,000 ($286)…. Before the crisis, around 7.4 million people were classified between the upper and lower poverty lines, making up 35.7 percent of the population. Today, however, poverty rates have exceeded all expectations, reaching 80 percent of the population. Unemployment rates, on the other hand, are over 55 percent of the workforce.