President Carlos Alvarado has pointed to unemployment as the main concern of his government, and the figures remain high amid a slowdown in the economy.
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.
The Legislative Assembly approved a bill that limits annual increases in rent to the inflation rate, and sets a cap of 10 percent, with possible exceptions.
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.
Costa Rica will reach a population of 5 million by 2018, according to estimates from the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC). INEC and Casa Presidencial warned that there are some growing pains ahead for the country as it approaches.
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.”
