(17 October 2019) – In 2018, 109.2 million people, or 21.7% of the population, in the European Union were at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
After three consecutive increases between 2009 and 2012 to reach almost 25%, the proportion of persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU has since continuously decreased to 21.7% last year, 2 percentage points below its 2008 reference-point and 0.7 percentage points below the 2017 level.
In 2018, more than a quarter of the population was at risk of poverty or social exclusion in seven Member States: Bulgaria (32.8%), Romania (32.5%), Greece (31.8%), Latvia (28.4%), Lithuania (28.3%), Italy (27.3%) and Spain (26.1%).
At the opposite end of the scale, the lowest shares of persons being at risk of poverty or social exclusion were recorded in Czechia (12.2%), Slovenia (16.2%), Slovakia (16.3%, 2017 data), Finland (16.5%), the Netherlands (16.7%), Denmark and France (both 17.4%) and Austria (17.5%).