In this new article we will see some statistics on income poverty. The data refer to the European Continent, not only to the European Union. Deepening these elements is always important, but it is even more important now in the face of a new economic crisis. The data on poverty and income imbalance show that there is still a lot of work to be done.
Gap Between Rich and Poor in Europe
Let’s start with a first element. What is the gap between rich and poor in Europe? Which are the countries where this gap is greater? To do this I have taken Eurostat data as a reference. In this first video you can see the gap between rich and poor in the first 20 countries of the European continent. From the data it emerges that above all the countries of Eastern Europe have a very strong gap between social classes. In the fourth quarter of 2020, 20% of the richest Serbian population had an income 8.58 times higher than 20% of the poorest population. This high figure can also be seen in Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and North Macedonia. What is surprising, however, is how in seventh place there is a country like Italy that counts, among other things, over 60 million inhabitants. This is followed by Spain and Great Britain. In these countries the gap between rich and poor is strong and felt.
The average of the European Union of 27 countries is however very high: it is higher than 5. The countries to be below this average are little. These include France, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Belgium and Finland.
Italy and Spain: two states with more than 20% of the population at risk of poverty
But how many people across Europe are really at risk of poverty? According to the latest Eurostat estimates, the average of the 27 countries was 16.8% in 2018. That means that for every 100 people almost 17 are poor or at risk of poverty. Again, the countries most affected seem to be those of Eastern Europe.
In Kosovo, for example, almost 28% of the population is at risk of poverty. In Serbia more than 23%. But the figures for Spain and Italy are again striking. In Spain over 21% of the population is at risk of poverty and in Italy 20.7%. A very distant figure from Germany, for example, which in 2018 had a value below 15%.
How will Europe’s economy respond to this new crisis?
In all this, as we showed a few days ago, the general economy due to Covid-19 is continuing to deteriorate. In fact, in the first quarters of 2020, the GDP of European countries has dropped significantly. For some countries the drop was a few percentage points. This means that in addition to the issue of the gap between rich and poor, there is a new challenge. How to relaunch the economy and get it out of a new crisis.
Data source and links
Let me know if the article was interesting. To make it I used Eurostat data from the database.
If you want to see other interesting videos follow my channel: https://youtube.com/c/statisticsanddata
For further insights on the economy: https://statisticsanddata.org/category/economy/