By Eduard Zaloshnja
For this piece I conducted a rigorous survey in urban Tirana (where randomly selected citizens were interviewed face-to-face in the 11 original former minibashkia, or minor municipal units, of the capital). Among the 71 questions in the questionnaire were several about the economic situation of the respondents’ families.
The only good news from the answers to the family economic questions was that 84.3% of respondents lived in their own homes, and only 15.7% had to pay rent for their housing (among socialist voters, this ratio was 90.7% to 9.3%).
To the question “Approximately what is your family’s monthly income in old leks, not including remittances received from abroad?”, almost half (including many socialist voters) answered between 250,000 and 999,000 old leks per month (the average of these families was 3 members, with 210,000 leks per month for each). Anyone who regularly shops knows what can be bought in Tirana in a month with such an income…
Indeed, to the question “How does your family manage to cover monthly expenses?”, a full 73% answered “with difficulty” or “with great difficulty.” Among socialist voters, these answers reached 58%.
But do urban families in Tirana have any help in covering monthly expenses? A full 45% of all respondents said they receive foreign currency remittances from relatives abroad. Meanwhile, 66% of urban families in Tirana have on average 2.1 members in emigration (not counting uncles, aunts, cousins, or other relatives).
And perhaps that is why 49% of respondents said they had gone on vacation this year, while 33% had not been able to go due to financial inability. Meanwhile, 18% said they did not go on vacation for other reasons.
NOTE: From surveys conducted among participants in the recent congressional elections in the USA, it emerged that difficulty in affording the cost of living was the main factor that caused the massive defeat of President Trump’s party.