People at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2024

In 2024, 93.3 million people in the EU (21.0% of the population) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, which means they lived in households experiencing at least 1 of 3 poverty and social exclusion risks: risk of poverty, severe material and social deprivation, and living in a household with very low work intensity. Compared with 2023, there was a slight decrease of 0.3 percentage points (21.3% of the population, 94.6 million people).

This information comes from data on people at risk of poverty or social exclusion published by Eurostat today. This article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article.

Source dataset: ilc_peps01n

The shares of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion varied across the EU countries in 2024. The highest values were reported in Bulgaria (30.3%), Romania (27.9%), Greece (26.9%), Spain and Lithuania (both 25.8%). On the other hand, the lowest shares were recorded in Czechia (11.3%), Slovenia (14.4%), the Netherlands (15.4%), Poland (16.0%) and Ireland (16.7%).