Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told Parliament this week that, for the first time, more Georgians are receiving social assistance than are officially considered poor. He attributed the gap to a Covid-era moratorium on rechecking citizens’ social-vulnerability scores — a freeze that allowed many beneficiaries to remain in the system even as economic conditions improved. His explanation is accurate as far as it goes, but the underlying situation is more complex than the prime minister’s remarks suggest.
A closer look at Georgia’s social-assistance rolls shows that a large share of recipients are children. Recent data from the social services reveal that as of August 2025, nearly 279,000 minors — close to a third of all Georgian children — were receiving subsistence allowance. This underscores a persistent reality: even as headline poverty indicators fall, many families with children continue to rely heavily on state support. For these households, social assistance is less an emergency lifeline and more a long-term stabilizer.
Another major factor behind the high number of beneficiaries is the government’s public-employment program. The initiative, intended to help vulnerable people enter the workforce, allows participants to retain their “socially vulnerable” status — and the accompanying benefits — for up to four years regardless of improvements in their income. In mid-2025, more than 239,000 allowance recipients were enrolled in this program. As a result, the social-assistance registry now includes many people who are technically employed but still officially classified as vulnerable. This design feature helps explain why the number of social-assistance recipients has remained high even during periods of economic recovery.
Official statistics do show that poverty, as measured by Georgia’s “absolute poverty line,” has declined sharply in recent years. GeoStat data for 2024 place the absolute poverty rate at 9.4%, down from 21.3% several years earlier. The improvement spans all age groups and both urban and rural areas, and the government has highlighted this as proof of successful economic and social policy. But the absolute poverty line is a narrow measure that captures only the most severe levels of deprivation. Broader indicators tell a different story. When consumption relative to the national median is measured — a more common European standard — nearly 19% of Georgians were classified as at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2024. This suggests that while fewer people are experiencing extreme hardship, a far larger share remains close to the edge financially.
Critics of the government say these numbers point to deeper structural problems. In remarks reported earlier this year, opposition politician Tazo Datunashvili warned that “one in five Georgians is now officially dependent on social assistance,” arguing that the government had shown “zero effect” in lifting families out of long-term vulnerability. His concern reflects a broader debate in Georgia about whether economic growth — driven lately by tourism, migration-related inflows, and post-pandemic rebound — is translating into lasting improvements in living standards.
Kobakhidze, for his part, has highlighted strong macroeconomic performance, noting that GDP per capita has surged since 2020 and is projected to surpass USD 10,000 in 2025. While dollar-denominated GDP has indeed risen sharply, much of that increase reflects currency appreciation and recovery from the pandemic downturn. Real, inflation-adjusted income growth has been far more modest. Economists have cautioned that using nominal dollar figures risks overstating how much ordinary Georgians actually feel the benefits of growth.
The prime minister did acknowledge that Georgia remains far behind even the least affluent EU member states and that sustained high growth will be essential to further reduce poverty and dependence on social programs. Yet the latest welfare figures — with 708,245 people receiving subsistence allowance in October 2025, at a monthly cost exceeding GEL 71 million — show that a significant share of the population continues to rely on the state for basic support. At the end of last year, 671,337 Georgians, or 18.1% of the population, were receiving the allowance — nearly double the country’s official poverty rate.
Taken together, the data present a more layered picture than the government’s optimistic framing. Poverty, at least as strictly defined, has declined. But vulnerability remains widespread, especially among families with children, and structural features of Georgia’s social-assistance system keep many people on the rolls even when their circumstances improve. The result is a social landscape in which welfare use is high, poverty is down, and yet many households remain one setback away from financial trouble.
By Team GT
