REUTERS
Almost half of the respondents (45%) said their utility payments in October 2019 increased year-over-year.
Some 14% of Ukrainians surveyed by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) say they spend more than half of their households' income to pay utility services.
"About 14% of Ukrainians spend more than half of their family income to pay their utility bills," the study said.
At the same time, over four years (since 2015), the share of households that spend more than half of their income on utilities has more than doubled, growing from 6% to 14%. The share of those who spend on utility services from a third to half of their income rose from 16% to 21%. Accordingly, the share of Ukrainians who spend up to 10% of their income for such services has shrink from 18% in 2015 to 12% in 2019. The share of those who spend from 10% to 30% of their income for utilities also dropped from 48% to 41%.
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"Almost half of the respondents (45%) said their utility payments in October 2019 increased year-over-year. Some 35% of respondents said their relevant expenses have not changed or decreased at all," the report said.
The survey was conducted on November 22-25 through computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) using a random selection of cell numbers. The sample is representative of the adult population (aged 18 and older). The survey was conducted in settlements across Ukraine with the exception of Crimea and the occupied areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The study involved 1,500 respondents. The theoretical margin of error does not exceed 3% with a 0.95% probability.
As UNIAN reported earlier, UAH 1.63 billion, or US$68 million, in subsidies from the national budget was paid to Ukrainian households to compensate housing and utilities costs in January-October 2019, which was 30% up year-over-year, according to the State Statistics Service.