Estimating the Level of Subsistence in Urban Areas of Kurdistan Province

Poverty has always been as a global challenge to the human societies and measuring the poverty and the ways of alleviating or eliminating the poverty are highly important in the literature of development economics. Due to the importance and need of tackling the poverty crisis، in one hand، and the importance of determining the people eligible for receiving the safety and social programs، on the other hand، there is need for measuring poverty at the society level. In this research، an estimation on the subsistence level of poverty and its trend in Kurdistan province urban areas over 1375-1378 has been conducted. The needed data include data on expenditures percentiles، statistics related to urban households expenses، and price indexes of goods and services of the urban areas of the Kurdistan province disaggregated at 8 commodity groups. For estimation of the subsistence level the method of Habit Least Expenditure System (HLES) which is mainly based on the Linear Expenditure System Demand. According to the findings، the least subsistence for a typical urban household in Kurdistan province in year 1375 is 4880939 Rials per year or 406745 Rials per month، which increased significantly to 3955095 Rials per year in 1387 or 3296258 Rials per month. During 1375-87 the growth rate of annual poverty line in the urban areas of the province was 19. 4 percent. During this period، except year 1379 in which housing group had the highest share in the subsistence level، in all the other years food stuff had the highest and health had the lowest share.