Poorest Part of Czech Rep?

I was wondering what the poorest part of the country is? North,east,south or west? Or is the standard of living pretty much the same everywhere once out of Prague?

Cheers

 

i don't have any verifiable data at hand, but from what i hear/read in the news and from what i've seen myself i guess it's probably the northwest and northeast

 

Wow! If what you say is true things must be really tough in the NE and NW of the Czech Republic, because when I took the train from Praha to Brno and back two years ago, I saw some really poor places.

 

I believe that the poorest regions are former centers of heavy industry (coal mining, steel manufacturing, partialy chemical industry, too). Communists extensively supported these sectors, but after 1989 revolution economy reality hit factories and mines and many workers was fired.

Regions - Most, Ostrava, Karviná, north Bohemia...

 

Define poorest

I guess NE and NW are considered poorest ONLY because of higher level of unemployment than in other areas in Czech rep., especialy comparing to Prague.

But if you have a job, living standard is almost same everywhere.

It is not like in Ukraine, where I have been told western part (Lviv, Uzghorod) is poorest, and you can see it everywhere - worse houses, roads, services than enywhere else in Ukraine.

 

Here are statistics about living conditions of households per regions (kraje) based by various criterion (in Czech):

http://www.brno.czso.cz/csu/2007edicnip ... /p/3012-07

Down -
Tab. 12.1 Domácnosti podle krajů - 1. část
Tab. 12.1 Domácnosti podle krajů - 2. část

 

interesting...

the link Eso gave also has English on the right hand side of the PDF files so I see that income is fairly uniform (with the exception of Prague, which seems to be about 30% higher, but so is the cost of living) across the country.

lack of income doesn't always translate as "poor" - some of the "richest" people I know "don't have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of" but their lives are full of love and laughter.

 

Well, I could argue that high unemployment means that in labour market supply exceeds demand by a huge margin, which allows employers to pay lower wages (at least for some jobs). Also, try to compare e.g. flat prices between rich and different region, there can be a huge difference - and I would say the price of estate reflects buying power (of course high unemployment - which also makes the region less attractive - accounts for low buying power too)

I also believe that separating areas into regions (kraje) can be somewhat twisted. For example in my region (Olomoucky kraj) there's quite a difference between Olomouc and Jesenik districts. It's pretty obvious when you drive from Olomouc to Jesenik - the closer you get to Jesenik, the smaller and shabbier the houses in villages become. There always used to be a huge difference between areas with fertile land and highlands, and though it changed when agriculture became less important source of income, the difference is still here.

 

Of course there are differences between rural and industrial areas, between cities and countryside.

But differences here are much less then in other countries I have seen (Slovakia, Croatia, Ukraine, Turkey).

 

Thanks for all your input. That link is great, full of info. I have not been outside of Prague yet and want to get a picture of the country. I have been to most countries in the Central/Eastern European parts and have found differences of wealth in many places. I spend a lot of time in Belarus and travel 100kms from Minsk and you go back 100 years in time. Houses with no plumbing, no indoor toilet, the oven uses wood, you get the picture. In Russia the northern towns like Vorkuta are decaying and villages are abandoned and rotting in the snow, it was eerie to see it. I did not know if Czech rep. had such grinding poverty anywhere.

As for defining poor, I suppose it is all relative. The poorest part of the Czech Rep. would I imagine probably still be in the top 5% wealth bracket of some African countries.

DjAvatar: I have been to Uzhgorod in the Ukraine and it really was not that bad. Beautiful town, lot's of construction. Apparently the Crimea is very poor which is surprising since it is a tourist Mecca. The $$$ do not always filter down.

 

Reading through the Statistics it says that CZK 21,462 is the "Gross monthly nominal wage". What exactly does that mean? I am confused by the nominal bit.

 

Real versus nominal value
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_versus_nominal_value

 

Thanks, all understood ( I think ). I have another question regarding this. If CZK 21,462 is the gross, then what is a Czech person who earns this likely to actualy have in his/her pay packet at the end of the month after tax deductions and any other compulsory contributions?

 

Look here: http://fincentrum.idnes.cz/nastr_kalk.a ... da2006.htm

- it's calculator for calculation gross to net salary

Vaše hrubá mzda - gross salary
Počet mezd v roce - number of salaries per year (some companies has more than 12 salaries, they have bonus 13th or 14th salary etc)
Počet vyživovaných dětí - nymber of sustained children
Vyživovaný(á) manžel(ka) - do you sustain husband/wife?
Student - Are you student?

Note: Week ago new tax law was approved by parliament and it will change many things.

 

... for the worse, of course.

 

I'm not sure, it seems, that my monthly net salary will rise up by cca 500Kc next year. On other hand, VAT will rise up too.

Whole new tax reform is so complicated, that nobody knows its outcome.

 

Trust the politicians to make you feel you have more money by increasing your take-home pay, while making you pay more in VAT, effectively hiding any real tax increase. VAT is evil! :evil: (not like I'm cynical or anything ... :wink: )

 

I just found these statistics on a property web site, cannot guarantee the accuracy:

"Of the 5 million Czech work force only 2% earn a monthly salary of over CZK 40.000 (Euro 1,300 ) but 65% of these high earners - about 66,000 people - work and live in Prague.

Another 20% of the work force earn between CZK 21,000 to 40,000 monthly salary (Euro 700 to 1,300 ) and this is the fastest growing earner segment of the nation's work force."

Who was it that said "There are 2 things that are certain in life, death and taxes"? I think it was Woody Allen but not sure.

 

Nothing is certain but death and taxes

Origin:

Several famous authors have uttered lines to this effect. The first was Daniel Defoe, in The Political History of the Devil, 1726:

"Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed."

Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) used the form we are currently more familiar with, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789, which was re-printed in The Works of Benjamin Franklin, 1817:

"'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

Another thought on the theme of death and taxes is Margaret Mitchell's line from her book Gone With the Wind, 1936:

"Death, taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them."

 

This Czech reform is a little different story, you should write:
Trust the politicians to make you feel you have more money by decreasing the tax rate, while making you pay more because of increasing of basis of assessment.

But the reform has some positive points, abolition of the minimal tax, for example (a tax of non-existing profit is a crime).

I don’t think VAT is the worst enemy of Czech taxpayers. We have problems with overcomplicated tax system and non-equal conditions for different groups of taxpayers.
VAT is not so wrong from this perspective.