According to Esteban Piedrahita, director of DNP, 46% of the country's total population lived in poverty at the end of last year, compared with 53.7% of those who lived in poverty at the end of 2002. The government considers as poor a family of four with a monthly household income of less than COP1.1 million or a single person earning less than COP275,000 a month. Meanwhile, extreme poverty increased to 17.8% of the country's total population in 2008, compared with 15.7% in 2005, but less than the 19.7% reported in 2002. Colombia has as much as 8 million living in extreme poverty. A family of four living in extreme poverty has household income less than COP400,000 a month and a single person in extreme poverty earns COP100,000 a month. "The government is worried with extreme poverty data as a large group of the population became poorer because of an increase in food prices. Inflation hits the poorest sectors," Piedrahita said. Read more here. Semana International delivers news about Colombia in English. Find more in our home.