The European Union’s annual report Social Justice for 2015 revealed that Greece ranked last place among the EU’s 28 member states.
The ranking is not of much surprise, given the current economic crisis gripping the nation and social reforms the government is adhering to in order to receive the financial lifeline of the bailout program.
However, the Social Justice report shows that despite of the country’s financial institutions receiving the bailout, the people are suffering and the situation on the ground is deteriorating fast.
Since 2008 the percentage of children who are living in serious material deprivation rose from 10.4 percent to 25.7.
The numbers of the report also reveal that the gap between Greece and Romania, which comes in second from the bottom, is rapidly growing in distance, leaving Greece in a class all of its own.
The report examines six different social justice sectors including poverty prevention, equal rights in education, labor market access, social cohesion, as well as the absence of discrimination in healthcare and justice.
Sectors such as poverty and social exclusion are particularly alarming in Greece as the report shows as much as 35.7 percent of the general population is in risk of living at or below poverty levels, with as much as 37.8 percent of children in the country at risk of living in poverty as well.
Also worth noting is that only 50.8 percent of the country’s workforce are employed, ranking Greece at the bottom of the EU bloc once again.
The end result of the staggering numbers revealed in the report all point towards long-term destabilization, as the report highlighted several warning signs that things are not improving for struggling Greek citizens who have the highest public debt in the EU and are not predicted to see any relief in the near future.
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