Baltic states report highest share of pensioners at poverty risk in EU – Eurostat

RIGA – The Baltic states report the highest share of pensioners at risk of poverty among other EU member states, according to the latest Eurostat data for 2017.

The four countries with the highest at-risk-of-poverty rates in 2017 were Estonia (46.1 percent), Latvia (43.7 percent), Lithuania (36.7 percent) and Bulgaria (32.4 percent). These countries are followed by Croatia (24.5 percent), Malta (21.8 percent) and Cyprus (21.6 percent).

The lowest poverty risk rates were recorded in France (7 percent), Slovakia (7.6 percent), Denmark (8.6 percent), Hungary (9.1 percent) and Luxembourg (9.3 percent).

In 2017 the proportion of pensioners at risk of poverty in the EU was estimated to be 14.2 percent, slightly above the figure of 13.8 percent in 2016. The rate has been rising gradually since 2013, when it was 12.6 percent.

Data were not available on Ireland.