The Comparison of Social Welfare, Income Distribution and Poverty Criteria of Rural Households in North Khorasan Province and Country during 2005-2011

This paper has calculated some of the most important indexes of social welfare, changes and income inequality including, Gini coefficient, docile ratio, Engel coefficient, social welfare, household real costs per capita, gap between urban and rural consumption and poverty line in the rural areas, using cost statistics and income household during 2005-2011. The research findings show that income inequality based on calculated indexes has fluctuations both in the rural areas of the country and north Khorasan Province but reduced considerably in 2011. North Khorasan Province shows unequal income distribution during the studied period compared to the country. Also the results reveal that social welfare indexes in the rural areas, have had a descending trend both in north Khorasan Province and in the country, but rural areas of north Khorasan Province have been in the worse situation. Furthermore poverty line has had an ascending trend which one of the main reasons of this increase has been the high rate of inflation.