Venezuela Poverty Drops Under Chavez

The number of Venezuelans living below the poverty line has sharply dropped since socialist-leaning President Hugo Chavez was first elected.

Since 1999 when Chavez was first elected, most polls have consistently shown that the president's support base is stronger among Venezuela's poor.

To fight poverty, the government has implemented “social missions,” a series of state-funded social programs across diverse areas of human development such as education, medicine, nutrition, and culture.

Authorities claim that the poverty rate has dropped to 27% and extreme poverty to 7.7% since Chavez took office, when 49% of the population lived below the poverty line and 21% were suffering from extreme poverty.'

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