Poverty rate in the Eastern Bloc 1987-1995

Between 1987 and 1988, just three percent of the population in Central and Eastern Europe lived below the poverty level; between 1993 and 1995, this had increased to one quarter of the population. This drastic shift came as a result of communism's end in Europe, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In Russia alone, just two percent of the population lived in poverty in 1989, but this rose to 23.8 percent in 1998.