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Monday, December 3, 2012

In Saudi Arabia, unemployment and booming population drive growing poverty

By Kevin Sullivan

The Washington Post
Monday, December 3, 2012

In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

A few miles from the blinged-out shopping malls of Saudi Arabia’s capital, Souad al-Shamir lives in a concrete house on a trash-strewn alley, with no job, no money, five children under 14 and an unemployed husband who is laid up with chronic heart problems.

“We are at the bottom,” she said, sobbing hard behind a black veil that left only her eyes visible. “My kids are crying and I can’t provide for them.”

Millions of Saudis live in poverty, struggling on the fringes of one of the world’s most powerful economies, where job-growth and welfare programs have failed to keep pace with a booming population that has soared from 6 million in 1970 to 28 million today.

Under King Abdullah, the Saudi government has spent billions to help the growing numbers of poor people, estimated to be as much as a quarter of the native Saudi population.

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