Poverty in Costa Rica remained stable at 21% in the last year, while extreme poverty had a slight reduction of half a percentage point to 5.8%, the official statistical agency said Thursday.
Costa Rica's prisons are desperately overcrowded thanks in large part, some say, to an overuse of pretrial detention, also known as preventive prison or "preventiva."
President Luis Guillermo Solís said a new poverty index, created by Oxford University, puts people over statistics. The index reported that 21.8 percent of Costa Rican households are considered poor, totaling 1.26 million people.
Poverty in Costa Rica dropped slightly over the past year, but extreme poverty continues to rise -- to 7.2 percent in 2015, according to the latest census institute survey.
Extreme poverty will this year fall to less than 10 percent of the global population for the first time, although there is still "great concern" for millions in Africa, a World Bank report said Sunday.
Eighty students from across Costa Rica participated in a photo course designed to explore the theme of poverty in everyday life. The photographs will be on display at the National Museum this weekend until Sunday, Sept. 27.
The world "witnessed an historic reduction in global poverty" over the first decade of the century, with those considered "middle income" nearly doubling, according to the Pew Research Center. But Costa Rica's middle class — and that of most other Central American countries — shrunk over the same time period as a percentage of those countries' total population.
President Solís' plan aims to unify all 30 of the government's current aid programs into a single welfare system called the “Unique System of Beneficiaries.”
Costa Rica has started a new campaign warning travelers not to remove wildlife, plants or other natural specimens after officials confiscated 4,366 animal and...
A Limon judge rejected a request to jail the wife of extradited trafficking suspect Edwin Lopez Vega for a year, imposing a travel ban instead. Prosecutors have appealed.
Prosecutors say two judges and a judicial agent from the Pococí courts are suspected of bribery and procuring impunity for a drug trafficking group between 2023 and 2026.
A Forbes travel feature on $60 coffee centers on a small producers association in Turrubares. Its president says the Starbucks price reported in the article likely reflects an intermediary rather than a direct sale.
