Poverty hits record high
The AKP's expenditure under its Poverty Alleviation Programme reached its highest level in history as of October 2025. A total of 295.7 billion TL was spent on poverty alleviation between January and October 2025.
The economic crisis in Turkey has deepened due to the budget allocation preferences of the AKP. As of June 2025, the number of citizens classified as ‘extremely poor’ was recorded as 11.8 million. Unable to find a permanent solution to deep poverty, the AKP government found the solution in opening the social assistance taps.
During the AKP governments, spending under the ‘Fighting Poverty and Social Solidarity’ programme, which was controversial on the grounds that it was used as a ‘patch’ for the effects of the economic crisis on citizens, reached a record level as of October 2025.
According to this expenditure, which starkly reveals the scale of the economic crisis in Turkey, spending from the central budget to combat poverty between January and September 2025 amounted to 295 billion 729 million 318 thousand TL.
Expenditure on the Fight Against Poverty and Social Assistance Programme, which is a source of pride for the government but described by the opposition as ‘managing poverty,’ was as follows by month:
January-February: 68.1 billion TLMarch-April: 46.5 billion TLMay-June: 65.5 billion TLJuly-August: 58.2 billion TLSeptember-October: 57.3 billion TL
POVERTY AT ITS PEAK
The 295.7 billion TL spent on the Poverty Alleviation and Social Assistance Programme exceeded the expenditure on 54 out of a total of 68 programmes. During the January-October 2025 period, some programmes with lower expenditure than the poverty alleviation programme were as follows:
Law and Justice: 266.6 billion TLForeign Policy: 43.3 billion TLIndustrial Development: 94.8 billion TLArts and Culture Economy: 9.2 billion TLCombating Addiction: 2.4 billion TL.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Yoksullukta rekor kırıldı, published in BirGün newspaper on November 19, 2025.
