In the first week of September I was reading latest news in the internet when an article about newest Central Statistical Bureau’s report about minimum subsistence level attracted my attention. This article had really interesting heading: “Minimum subsistence level in August reaches 132.62 LVL! Try to get along with it!” It was said that in August this index is a little bit less than it was in July, despite the fact that at the same time inflation in our country increases during last two and a half years. We have this amazing opportunity to write our opinion about articles in the internet. So I was surprised about amount of readers’ commentaries about this article – almost four hundred only in eight hours - and I wanted to find out what our society is thinking about this topic. In commentaries a lot of people suggested to make a new reality show in which our politicians, for example Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis, would show us how to live with 132.62 LVL per month. Of course this suggestion is trivial, but it shows readers’ attitude on this issue. And this suggestion was the reason why I wanted to test if it is possible to live nowadays with 132.62 LVL per month. But for a lack of time I didn’t have a month, so my experiment lasted only to weeks – accordingly I tried to live these two weeks with 66.31 LVL.
Before to start my experiment I tried to find out what is the minimum subsistence level (hereafter – subsistence level) and how it is calculated in our country. As it would be difficult further to understand my essay I want to introduce the reader with my findings. In 1991 the Council of Ministers accepted minimum consumer basket of goods and services for one inhabitant (hereafter – consumer basket). The consumer basket was made by USSR nutritive scientists and several experts who defined basic needs for food, clothing, home ect. This basket is a definite list and amount of goods and services, witch would have to secure socially accepted minimal subsistence level for the person. …
