It's noticeably improving, though! Over the last 10 years or so, both their GDP per capita and household income per capita have roughly doubled. Now when I visit medium-sized cities there I am amazed to find latte-slinging coffee shops and craft beer-pouring gastropubs that would look right at home in Brooklyn.
Rinzler89|1 year ago
True, but that's not an accurate measurement of the quality of life or income of the average Romanian. They're are just businesses serving an afluent urban clientele (mostly corporate/IT workers and other high income people) that's like what 10% of the național population or something but overly represented in much higher proportions in the big cities.
Go to the smaller cities or villages and you'll see a different picture: lots of people with precarious education, unemployed or making minimum wage in dead-end jobs and living paycheck to paycheck unable to afford to fix broken teeth, hospitals and schools falling apart, etc.
The country's still much better to live in (especially in the 5 big cities) than what the average of the planet has to deal with, but there's a reason why statistically it's at the bottom of the EU charts. Tech workers sipping gourmet coffee in the big cities are the exception but don't represent the norm.