Poverty : what is it?
One of the problems with discussing poverty is clarifying what it means and how it can be defined. At the EU level, the notions of absolute and relative poverty are both used to describe poverty. Since 2010, the composite notion of Risk of Poverty or Social Exclusion, which brings together relative monetary poverty, material deprivation…
How is poverty measured?
In the EU, people falling below 60% of median income are said to be “at-risk-of monetary poverty”. The At Risk Of Poverty or Social Exclusion (AROPE) Composite IndicatorThe At Risk Of Poverty or Social Exclusion (AROPE) Composite Indicator Living below the poverty line: the AROP indicator Social benefits drastically reduce poverty Measuring deprivation: the Severe…
Poverty : facts and trends
The most recent data available (2012) show that 24,8% of the EU population, that is about 124,5 million people, are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. 16,9% of the population in the EU is at risk of relative income poverty, 9,9% is severely materially deprived, and 10,5% is living in households with very low…
Inequality : what is it?
Poverty is fundamentally linked to the issue of how resources are distributed and redistributed in a country. Countries with high levels of inequality are also likely to have high levels of poverty and those with lower levels of inequality are likely to have lower levels of poverty. Inequality: what is it? How it is measured?…
Causes of poverty and inequality
The overall persistent high level of poverty in the EU suggests that poverty is primarily the consequence of the way society is organized and resources are allocated. The decisions over how to eradicate poverty in the end are political choices about the kind of society we want. Some people imagine that in a rich region…