By Kevin Sullivan
The Washington Post
Monday, December 3, 2012
In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
A few miles from the blinged-out shopping malls of Saudi
Arabia’s capital, Souad al-Shamir lives in a concrete house on a
trash-strewn alley, with no job, no money, five children under 14 and an
unemployed husband who is laid up with chronic heart problems.
“We are at the bottom,” she said, sobbing hard behind a black veil
that left only her eyes visible. “My kids are crying and I can’t provide
for them.”
Millions of Saudis live in poverty, struggling on the
fringes of one of the world’s most powerful economies, where job-growth
and welfare programs have failed to keep pace with a booming population that has soared from 6 million in 1970 to 28 million today.
Under
King Abdullah, the Saudi government has spent billions to help the
growing numbers of poor people, estimated to be as much as a quarter of
the native Saudi population.
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