Risk of poverty in Portugal practically aligned with the EU average in 2018

  • Lusa
  • 16 October 2019

According to Eurostat, last year there were 21.6% of people at risk of poverty in Portugal. The country is in line with the EU average, but has more than doubled compared to 2018.

In the European Union (EU) in 2018, there were 21.7% of people at risk of poverty, with Portugal aligned on the average (21.6%), but more than double the EU (4.4 percentage points) compared to 2008, according to Eurostat.

In the EU, the fall in the rate of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion was two percentage points compared to the reference year (2008), according to data released on Thursday by the European Statistical Office.

More than a quarter of the population was at risk of poverty in seven Member States last year: Bulgaria (32.8%), Romania (32.5%), Greece (31.8%), Latvia (28.4%), Lithuania (28.3%), Italy (27.3%) and Spain (26.1%).

At the other end of the table, the lowest rates of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion were observed in the Czech Republic (12.2%), Slovenia (16.2%), Slovakia (16.3% according to 2017 data), Finland (16.5%), the Netherlands (16.7%), Denmark and France (17.4% each) and Austria (17.5%).

Considering the three elements that define the risk of poverty, Eurostat indicates that 16.9% of the EU population was in danger even though they were in receipt of social benefits (17.3% in Portugal), 5.8% were at risk of severe material deprivation (6.0% in Portugal) and 9.0% were living in low-work intensity households (7.2% in Portugal).