Monaco - Poverty and wealth

Living standards in Monaco are high, comparable to those in the most prosperous French urban areas. Since one of the principality's priorities is to attract wealthy individuals from all over the world to acquire real estate and live and spend in the country, the government constantly uses its economic advantages to improve the quality of life and to combine work and leisure. Indeed, many of the world's rich buy property in Monaco to take advantage of Monaco's tax regime, although they seldom abide by the legal requirement to live 6 months of every year in the country, and often hire locals to maintain their

Exchange rates: Monaco
euros per US$1
Jan 2001	1.0659
2000	1.0854
1999	0.9386
1998	5.8995
1997	5.8367
1996	5.1155
Note: Rates prior to 1999 are in French francs per US$.
SOURCE: CIA World Factbook 2001 [ONLINE].

GDP per Capita (US$)
Country	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
Monaco	5,000	N/A	N/A	27,000	N/A
United States	28,600	30,200	31,500	33,900	36,200
France	20,900	22,700	22,600	23,300	24,400
San Marino	N/A	20,000	N/A	N/A	32,000
Note: Data are estimates.
SOURCE: Handbook of the Nations , 17th,18th, 19th and 20theditions for 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 data; CIA World Factbook 2001 [Online] for 2000 data.

property instead. There are many large local private fortunes in the principality as well and extreme poverty is virtually non-existent. The number of jobs in the country (32,691 in 1999; 29,311 in the private sector) outnumbers its total population (31,693 in 2000), and the majority of the workers, particularly in the lower-paying jobs, commute daily from neighboring France and Italy. Their scale of pay and benefits are commensurable with the ones in France, and the French workforce is reckoned to be among the most privileged in the world.