The methodology used to determine the poverty line in Bulgaria will be aligned with the “Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC)” used in the Eurostat survey. This provides for changes in the Methodology for determining the poverty line in the country, which were approved by the government.

This will unify the data used to determine poverty and achieve comparability of data internationally, as all European Commission (EC) documents in the field of poverty and social protection are based on data from the SILC survey. The poverty line defined by the survey is also used in all national strategic and normative documents.

The change will lead to the use of a single indicator both for determining the poverty line for the country and for all national policies in the social field and EC documents related to poverty and social inclusion. In this way, better coherence will be achieved between policies on the rights of people with disabilities, social assistance, the minimum wage, social inclusion and others.