I wonder how much money a local needs to get by on for a year in
Ulaanbaatar, assuming he/she must support a small family.

I'm after the median urban household income. Or something like it. A
reasonable estimate would do. Maybe someone is familiar with the place
(e.g. politicalguru-ga) or can deduce something from the UN Human
Development Program stats below:

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2002/en/indicator/indicator.cfm?File=cty_f_MNG.html

or

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/view_reports.cfm?country=MON&countryname=MONGOLIA

or

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mg.html


The answer need only be a dollar value, plus some brief gist of how
it's derived.  A prompt response would be appreciated.

I'll give 5 stars to a valid, understandable and quick answer
(otherwise unrated)

Thanks!

Hi there,

I was surprised by the level of detail offered by the Mongolian
Statistical Office. Their site offers a PDF file which probably has
more info than you need, and the figures are for the first 11 months
of 2002. Cost of living figures are broken down into different
locations, including Ulaanbaatar. It also details where income is
derived from, as well as the products & services the locals spend
their money on.

For Ulaanbaatar the monthly average income per household for the 3rd
quarter of 2002 is 177,813.5 Mongolian Tugriks (aka Togrogs), which
converts to $US159.1329

So, for your family to live like the locals, you are looking at $1920
for a year.

Monthly Bulletin of Statistics
http://nso.mn/bulletin/2002/bul_november_2002.pdf

Mongolian Statistical Office
http://nso.mn/eng/home.htm


Search strategy: site:.gov Ulaanbaatar 

Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by robertskelton-ga on 18 Dec 2002 15:00 PST

For some reason the links didn't come out right, maybe if I try a second time:

http://nso.mn/bulletin/2002/bul_november_2002.pdf 

http://nso.mn/eng/home.htm

A perfect answer, or as close as makes no difference.  And in 3 hours!
Thanks, robertskelton-ga.

When I searched Google, I had seen a link to that site, but skipped it
because of bad experiences with other developing countries' stats
sites.

An interesting UNDP stat... Population below income poverty line (%):
$1 a day (1993 PPP US$), 1983-2000 view 13.9%
$2 a day (1993 PPP US$), 1983-2000 view 50.0%
National poverty line, 1987-2000 view 36.3%  

That means (i) Mongolia is dirt poor, as 50% of people earn less than
$2 per day; (ii) the government reckons its citizens can get by OK on
less than $2 and; (iii) Google Answers' Researchers based in Mongolia
need only answer one question per day.

In case you're not based in Mongolia, I'm sending a tip ;-)