The Social Classes in Venezuela

Please not that this article is in no way intended for discrimination, and is written for the sole purpose of helping understand other articles. For a better understanding of this article, please refer to http://venezuela2015crisis.blogspot.com/2015/09/cencoex-sicad-simadi-and-dolartoday.html

Let's suppose the Venezuelan society is composed of 4 social classes: the poor, the lower-middle class, the upper-middle class and the rich.

1- The poor:

They can live in a tiny house in the rural part of the country, in a "barrio" of Caracas or other. They are poor but (until recently) they are far from thinking of suffering of hunger or malnutrition. They receive a lot of government subventions, like food or clothes. Where in the world do poor people frequently eat meat and chicken? Venezuela. Some of the poor people, mainly those from the "barrios", are the "malandros". They are parts of organized crime schemes, gangs or just lonely wolves.

2- The lower-middle class:

They get less subventions from the government than the poors, and they are  the people who struggle the most to live. Many of them were in the upper-middle class.

3- The upper-middle class:

Those people live in apartments or small houses in the city, They were either rich before the economy got bad, have a well-paid job (senior engineer for example), have family helping them from abroad ($, COP....), or recently sold a land or apartment etc.. They typically drive cars no newer than ~2008 models.

4- The rich:

From rich to multi-$millionaire. Any tourist or foreigner. The easiest way to define a rich person in Venezuela is the following: a person who does not do the "cola" (wait in line) to get goods, because this person can afford buying them at a "premium" price (like 10 times more, from specified shops) or employ other people only to do the cola to get her the wanted goods. This person, supposing she's not related to the army or the government, either earns in foreign currency (which is traded in the black market to Bsf), is an importer or a trader, is a smuggler, or has a local business of premium services (like an expensive restaurant or an electronics shop). Of course, supposing the person is not involved in any illegal or criminal activity.