Greece ranks fourth among the 28 EU member-states with the highest percentage of citizens living on or below the poverty line, according to figures released by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) and published in a report by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) on Wednesday.
According to the report, just over a third of Greeks were living on less than 60% of the national median income in 2013 (34.6% or 3,795,100 individuals). This percentage has increased steadily since 2010 and the start of the bailout programs for Greece, from 27.6% in 2010 to 27.7% in 2011, 31% in 2012 and 34.6% in 2013.
ELSTAT’s figures showed that the risk of poverty in Greece has increased significantly since 2010 and the percentage of relative poverty increased by 17.3% or 3.4 percentage points. During the same period, the poverty gap increased by 24.1% while the risk of poverty and social exclusion by seven percentage points or 25.4%.
Among EU28 countries, the percentage living in relative poverty was highest in Bulgaria (49.3%), Romania (41.7%) and Latvia (36.2%).
Greece’s poverty rate also outstripped that of other EU countries that have entered bailout programs, where the equivalent percentages were 30% in Ireland, 28.2% in Spain, 27.1% in Cyprus and 25.3% in Portugal.
The five EU28 member-states with the lowest rates of poverty were the Netherlands (15%), Czech Republic (15.4%), Sweden (15.6%), Finland (17.2%) and Luxembourg (18.4%). The average poverty rate in the EU28 countries was 24.8% and in the Eurozone countries 23.3%.
(source: ana-mpa)
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