How Many People Are at Risk of Poverty in Europe?

In 2023, 94.6 million people in the EU (or just over 21 percent of the population) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, i.e. living in households facing at least one of the three risks of poverty and exclusion: income poverty, severe material and social deprivation and/or living in a household with very low work intensity (where adults work at less than 20 percent of their potential over one year). According to Eurostat data, this figure has remained relatively stable compared to the previous year (95.3 million in 2022, or 22 percent of the population).

As the following infographic shows, the share of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion varies significantly from one EU country to another. Last year, the EU countries with the highest shares were Romania (32 percent), Bulgaria (30 percent), Spain (26.5 percent) and Greece (26.1 percent). Meanwhile, the lowest shares were recorded in the Czech Republic (12 percent), Slovenia (13.7 percent) and Finland (15.8 percent).