ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Regional Government requested Baghdad to include welfare and disability benefit allocations for more than 100,000 families living below the poverty line and 30,000 persons with disabilities in Iraq’s 2027 federal budget, the Kurdish labor and social affairs minister said Thursday.
“More than 100,000 families in the Kurdistan Region live below the poverty line,” Minister Kwestan Mohammed told Rudaw's Hiwa Jamal, adding that 100,000 families were identified through assessments by the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Planning.
The request comes as Baghdad and Erbil prepare for discussions over 2027 budget allocations, including the Kurdistan Region’s share.
Mohammed said her ministry has sought meetings with Iraq’s prime minister, finance minister and labor minister “two months ago” but “there has been no response.”
The minister further requested Baghdad to reopen registration for people with disabilities, citing its halt in 2013 “amid the Kurdistan Region’s financial crisis.”
“We now have nearly 30,000 people with disabilities in the Kurdistan Region who do not have salaries,” Mohammed said, highlighting the difficulty facing those who are employed.
She said the names and documents of more than 13,000 people have already been submitted to Baghdad, while the ministry is seeking approval to register the remaining 17,000.
Mohammed also asked for disability benefits to be raised to at least 250,000 Iraqi dinars ($190) per month, saying current payments of 100,000 to 150,000 dinars ($76 - $115) - in accordance with head of household and employment status - fall short of providing adequate support for many families.
“For a person with a disability who is the head of a family and has several children, 150,000 dinars [$115] is not really [much] money,” she said.
In March 2025, Iraq set the launch of a five-year plan aimed at combating poverty, after the results of a recent census showed that over seven million Iraqis live below the poverty line, a spokesperson from the planning ministry told Rudaw at the time.
Iraq’s Ministry of Planning said in February 2025 that the national poverty rate fell from 20.5 percent in 2018 to 17.5 percent in 2024 and that poverty in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani increased from four percent to eight percent, with Erbil seeing a modest uptick from 6.7 percent to 7.1 percent over the same period.
"There will be actions and measures to support the poor and reduce poverty across Iraq, with good collaboration in this field within the Kurdistan Region," pledged the ministry’s spokesperson at the time.
Nevertheless, Mohammed said that while her ministry had previously requested support for 205,000 low-income families, the request was only submitted for 100,000 families according to the Iraqi Ministry of Planning assessment which determined that “there are 100,000 households living below the poverty line.”
“Once Baghdad agrees, we will publish the forms,” she said.
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