Poverty is a recent reality in Mongolia. Until about 1990 there were virtually no poor people in rural areas. The government and rural collectives made sure that everyone was supplied with basic goods and access to a full range of public services. Poverty has been a direct consequence of the transition to a market economy in the 1990s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Mongolia's centrally planned economy. Privatization of industry and state farms brought high levels of unemployment. Benefits and assistance dried up. Incomes shrank, inflation devoured purchasing power and people had to bear the cost of health and education services.