One Romanian out of five was affected by poverty in 2023, and 21.1% of the resident population lived in a household whose income was lower than the threshold set at the level of 60% of the median available income per adult/equivalent, reveals the data published on Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).
According to the cited source, estimated on the basis of the total available income, excluding the value of consumption from the household’s own resources, the relative poverty rate (AROP) decreased by only 0.1 percentage points last year.
Practically, in absolute values, the number of impoverished people was 3.970 million, 59,000 less than in 2022.
By gender, in 2023, the poverty rate was higher among men by 0.5 percentage points than among women (21.3% versus 20.8%). The highest incidence of poverty was found among people in the „0-17 years old” category (29.6%) and „18-24 years old” (24%).
Also, the poverty rate of people living in households with dependent minors and young people aged 18-24 was 25.1%, in 2023, 9.1 percentage points higher than that of people living in households without minors and young dependents.
Official statistics show that, during the past year, the rate of severe material and social deprivation was 19.8%, down 4.5 percentage points compared to 2022, and the total number of people affected by severe material and social deprivation it was 3.739 million, of which 44.9% were men and 55.1% were women.
The INS data highlights the fact that severe material and social deprivation affects the population with different intensity depending on the age group and household income. Thus, in the year 2023, the incidence of severe material and social deprivation was higher mainly among elderly people aged 65 and over (23.7%) and among people aged up to 18 (22.6%).
The highest rate of the risk of poverty or social exclusion was recorded in the South-East region (45.3%), closely followed by the South-West Oltenia region (40.5%), and the lowest rate was observed in the Bucharest-Ilfov region (12.3%).
AGERPRES
