Poverty in the European Union

October 2012, Susanne Halmer, 96 pages

80 million people living in the European Union are currently at risk of poverty. The Europe 2020 Strategy defines the reduction of poverty by 20 million by 2020 as one of its core targets. How close resp. how far remote the realisation of this target is, is shown in an overview of the most recent at-risk-of-poverty quotas according to countries, regions and cities. This illustrates that poverty is still a massive problem and a great affliction in particular to certain demographic groups. In the EU for example, every second unemployed person, every third single-parent household and every fifth child (up to 18 years) is at risk of poverty. The situation for risk groups in individual countries is far more dramatic. The sometimes widely differing risk-of-poverty quotas reflect the differences of the Member States in respect of social benefits, pension systems and economic power. Compared to other European countries, Austria, even if she is below average, is not part of the leading group. This means that even one of the world’s richest countries has a serious poverty problem.

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