In Saudi Arabia, unemployment and booming population drive growing poverty, By Kevin Sullivan, December 2, 2012, Washington Post: “A few miles from the blinged-out shopping malls of Saudi Arabia’s capital, Souad al-Shamir lives in a concrete house in a trash-strewn alley, with no job, no money, five children younger than 14 and an unemployed husband who is laid up with chronic heart problems. ‘We are at the bottom,’ she said, sobbing hard behind a black veil that left only her eyes visible. ‘My kids are crying, and I can’t provide for them.’ Millions of Saudis live in poverty, struggling on the fringes of one of the world’s most powerful economies, where job-growth and welfare programs have failed to keep pace with a booming population that has soared from 6 million in 1970 to 28 million today…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty