Unemployment hovered at 8-10% after the start of the economic slowdown in 1999, above the 7% average for the 1990s. Unemployment finally dipped to 7.8% in 2006, and continued to fall in 2007, averaging 6.8% monthly (up to August). Wages have risen faster than inflation as a result of higher productivity, boosting national standard of living. The percentage of Chileans with household incomes below the poverty line - defined as twice the cost of satisfying a persons minimal nutritional needs - fell from 45.1% in 1987 to 11.7% in 2015, according to government polls. Critics in Chile, however, argue that poverty figures are considerably higher than those officially published; until 2016, the government defined the poverty line based on an outdated 1987 household consumption poll, instead of more recent polls from 1997 or 2007. According to critics who use data from the 1997 poll, the poverty rate goes up to 29%; a study published in 2017 claims that it reaches 26%. Using the relative yardstick favoured in many European countries, 27% of Chileans would be poor, according to Juan Carlos Feres of the ECLAC. Starting in 2016, a new Multidimensional Poverty Index is also used, which reached 20.9% using 2015 data.. How many percent of people were not at or below the poverty rate in 1997?