In my country poor people are: doctors and nurses who work at state hospitals(most of them), teachers at state schools, university professors(both state and private ones), engineers who work at such government facilities as nuclear plants and the like, scientists in general and also some government officials.
All them make roughly 10-20% percent of what moderately skillful software engineer could make, in the same city and country.
Just for the reference.
They probably make more than minimum wage workers at (fast food|restaurants|cleaning|etc) ? So even if they're relatively poor compared to skilled software engineers ( which is usually even more skewed because skilled ones often work for rich foreign companies that can afford a much better salary and still come out cheaper than engineers in their original country), they're still better off than minimum wage, who are the real working poor ( note that in some countries and cities minimum wage can be sufficient and wouldn't put you in the poor category)
Well not really. Actually minimum wage in Ukraine (where I live) is rather low, so businesses generally pay higher.
Fast food workers are not on minimum wage.
In terms of salary a school teacher would make less or the same as McDonalds worker.
For example, McDonalds Ukraine pays an entry level worker -14 000 UAH ($500) monthly for 40 hours per week.
School teacher makes minimum 5000 UAH ($180), +bonus(10-60%). Teacher who was awarded a "highest category" certification (that would be a very experienced one) and who will get all the possible bonuses and raises will make around 14 000 UAH, roughly.
Workers, cleaning personnel would make in the same ballpark 9000 - 14000 UAH ($300-500) at least in Kyiv. Selling phones in the store, work at supermarket also has a similar remuneration.
Average doctor salary (not nurse) is 9000 UAH, at least officially.
The reason is - most those highly skilled and highly educated workers that I've mentioned are paid by the government which does not have funds and desire honestly to treat these people well. They are remnants of decaying public infrastructure - Ukraine has de jure free universal health care and a very big amount of government-funded seats at state universities.
Still it is better to work at school than at the factory probably.
You just have a stereotype of how certain things work, everything is not like US/Western Europe structurally. Higher education is not a ticket to a better life everywhere.
Ah, sorry, didn't know things are that bad in Ukraine. I'm from Bulgaria so i can assure you my stereotypes are mixed and i don't think everything is like in the US or Western Europe.
How's the new president doing? At first it seemed like a joke, but the little concrete things i've read about him post-election seemed OK.
Of course, I think you can really get the idea what is going on in Ukraine due to kind of similar circumstances. Sorry for being a bit too blunt.
New president I think is a bit better than the previous three but the whole situation kind of shows two things:
1) There is not much you can do in the country where oligarchs control everything.
2) There is still not much ideas for the future except some sort of a neoliberal 'reaganomics', further privatization and generally disengagement of the state from any meaningful public good iniatives.
To put it into context, no, these people make around the same as factory worker. Work conditions would be much nicer, still.
Schoolteachers are considered 'poor' by other Ukrainians (who are not too well-off themselves) compared to other occupations without taking into account SW jobs and anything like that.
Ukraine. I think it would similar in other post-socialist states where transition to market economy was not a big success. I would put Moldova, Armenia in the same ballpark, maybe certain poorer Central Asia states like Uzbekistan but I'm not 100% sure.
