Poor people in Bulgaria account for 23.8% of the population or 1,660,000 people, reads the National Strategy for Reducing Poverty which has been posted to the website of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy for public discussion.

The strategy emphasizes that the previous national objective set down - of reducing the number of poor by 260,000 by 2020 - has not been attained. The principal factor increasing the risk of falling into the category of the poor is economic inactivity and non-participation in the labour market. That is why integration into the labour market of the people who are not active and of the unemployed, including the long-term unemployed, is a crucial priority.