Risk of poverty in EU Member States

According to the EU-SILC survey carried out in 2009, across the European Union some 16% of the population were at risk of poverty, in the sense that they had income below 60% of the median of the country in which they lived - a total of 80 million people. The proportion concerned varied from 9% to 26% across the EU Member States. It was lowest in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands and Slovenia, and above average in the Baltic States, Bulgaria, Romania and the southern countries of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Since the risk of poverty is a relative measure that is country specific, the poverty thresholds differ greatly across countries in terms of the purchasing power they represent. The average poverty threshold in the 12 countries that have entered the EU since 2004 was only around half the average in the other 15 Member States in purchasing power terms, and much less in terms of Euro (see more on this below).

Figure 1: At-risk-of-poverty rates across the EU, 2008 income year