Country detail · v1-20260518

Costa Rica

In The Cracks Index, Costa Rica ranks 36 of 40. 35 countries catch their most vulnerable people more reliably; 4 countries do so less reliably.

Composite score Widening

72.7

0 best · 100 widest cracks · built from 6 indicators

The fix

The change most likely to close the widest crack in Costa Rica

Earlier, lower-threshold debt support is the lever most associated with improvement here — reaching households before arrears compound.

Linked to the indicator problematic debt. This is the index pointing forward: not a judgement, but a lever. The estimated impact is published as a direction, not a promise.

The six indicators

Where Costa Rica’s safety net holds, and where it is under strain

Each bar is the indicator normalised to 0–100, direction-corrected so a longer bar always means more cracks. The raw public value and the source year sit beside it.

All 6 indicators are still an estimate The rest is a modelled v0 estimate. Coverage grows weekly as more sources are fetched live.

Problematic debt Widest crack

weight 19%

Share of households with debts they can no longer repay. The first crack most people fall through, and the one that pushes the others open.

81

Raw value 20.5 % of households source year 2024 Open estimate

Number of evictions

weight 15%

Court-ordered evictions per 10,000 households. A direct measure of how often housing insecurity is allowed to reach its endpoint.

79

Raw value 21.5 per 10,000 households source year 2024 Open estimate

Mental-health treatment gap

weight 15%

Share of people with an identified mental-health care need who receive no care. The distance between needing help and reaching it.

80

Raw value 30.5 % unmet need source year 2024 Open estimate

Unmet youth care

weight 12%

Share of young people referred for care who wait longer than the recommended term or are never helped. A crack measured early in a life.

78

Raw value 22.5 % unmet need source year 2024 Open estimate

Food insecurity

weight 12%

Share of the population reporting moderate or severe food insecurity. The point at which a financial shortfall reaches the kitchen table.

62

Raw value 19 % of the population source year 2024 Open estimate

Severe material deprivation

weight 12%

Share of the population unable to afford several basic necessities that most people take for granted. A widely used floor for material insecurity.

47

Raw value 12.5 % of the population source year 2024 Widening estimate

The widest crack in Costa Rica is problematic debt, which carries the most weight in raising the composite score. That is what the fix above targets.

Around this rank

35 Romania 72.4 36 Costa Rica 72.7 37 Bulgaria 79.6
See the full ranking →

Cite this figure

Fynqo (2026). The Cracks Index, v1-20260518. Snapshot of 2026-05-18. Licensed under CC-BY-4.0. https://fynqo.app/cracks-index/

Every value on this page is a public country-level aggregate. No personal data is used. The method is fully public.

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