163 Thousand People Lost Social Assistance in 9 Months

In September, the number of recipients of living assistance decreased by another 23 thousand compared to August. In the first three quarters of the year, assistance was terminated for a total of 163 thousand people.

The number of social assistance recipients had been growing almost constantly over the past 5 years, except for 2023. In January-August 2026, however, their number sharply decreased by 23%.

Social assistance is a state-created financial aid mechanism. Its aim is to provide material support to families living in poverty so that they can meet their minimum consumer needs.

In 9 months, the number of direct assistance recipients decreased by 13%, from 464 thousand to 405 thousand. The number of recipients under the program, meanwhile, fell by 42%, from 246 thousand to 142 thousand.

One of the main reasons for the decline is named as the abolition of the "fictitious program" for employing socially unprotected people. Over 4 years, 407 million lari was spent from the state budget on it. The program was associated with Irakli Gharibashvili. Within its framework, the number of guards in schools and cleaners in cemeteries was artificially increased, and in one village they even cleaned a tank. The program was closed in 2026, while Georgian Dream acknowledged that the employment was fictitious. Of the 163 thousand terminated assistance cases, almost two-thirds, 104 thousand, are directly linked to the abolition of this program.

The second reason named is the end of the prolonged moratorium. During the pandemic, families were not checked. Even after the pandemic, except for 2023, the number of assistance recipients mostly grew, but from 2026 a sharp decline began.

Two problems that were constantly evident during the program, and remain relevant today, are that some people receive assistance for non-targeted purposes, while some people who are below the subsistence minimum cannot receive assistance.

The decline can be explained in substance in two ways: either a large part of the population has escaped extreme poverty, or poverty has not decreased, but the government artificially reduced the number of beneficiaries to save money and to look better for PR purposes. Under conditions of high economic growth, the growth in the number of social assistance recipients appeared unnatural.

In the first quarter of 2026, the number of employed people decreased by 25 thousand, which the government explained by the abolition of the fictitious employment program. In the second quarter, the number of employed people also decreased by one thousand. In the same quarter, the real wage growth rate, calculated at constant prices, amounted to only 2%.