After more than a decade of war and recurring economic crises, poverty in Syria has expanded to encompass the majority of the population, with UN assessments putting those below the poverty line at about 90% and unemployment near one in four. Enab Baladi records everyday examples of this shift: a public employee in Aleppo taking delivery shifts to cover basics, a university graduate in Damascus forced into unstable freelance work, and a farmer in southern Aleppo cutting cultivated land as input costs soar. These coping strategies—multiple jobs, informal or unregulated work, and reliance on remittances—have become normalized survival tactics rather than routes out of deprivation.

Causes, impacts and proposed responses

Economists and academics interviewed by Enab Baladi describe poverty as multidimensional and structural, driven by the destruction of productive sectors, long-standing policy imbalances, subsidy removals, sanctions, exchange-rate collapse and weak public services. Specialists warn the crisis has eroded the middle class, shifted labor toward informal low‑productivity work, increased child labor and internal displacement, and reshaped social identity and trust in the state. Officials say a multisector government committee is preparing a national anti-poverty strategy and UNICEF/UNDP-supported workshops have introduced multidimensional poverty measurement, but short-term measures such as the 2026 wage decree have had limited effect. Experts call for a mix of immediate safety nets targeted to the poorest, vocational training and jobs creation, revival of agriculture and small and medium industry, concessional finance for SMEs, anti-corruption measures and institutional reforms to rebuild productive capacity.

The overall message from analysts and survivors is that Syria faces a long-term structural poverty problem that requires coordinated policy reform and social protection alongside emergency aid; without that integrated response the social and political strains from widespread deprivation are likely to deepen. as reported by Enab Baladi