C6te d'Ivoire is one of the few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to have conducted household surveys over a ten year period between 1985 and 1995 that allow one to trace the evolution of poverty in urban and rural areas and among different socioeconomic groups. This ten year period spans an economic recession of major proportion and ends with the beginning of an economic recovery followingthe devaluation of the CFA franc in January 1994. Poverty increased substantially over the course of the recession, and did not diminish in the year following the devaluation in part because much of increase in export crop prices, especially cocoa, was taxed away.