Poverty 1959-60

A UN study of Lebanon in the early 1960s found:

"In addition to the disparities in levels of development between Beirut and the peripheral areas; or between the city and the countryside in general, or even as a function of geographic proximity to Beirut, the IRFED study unveiled huge disparities in income distribution for the interval 1959-1960.

"The richest 4 percent among the Lebanese appropriated 32 percent of the national income, whereas the poor constituted 50 percent of the population, including 9 percent which the study considered as 'wretched'."