Redacción Aquí Europa
In Spain, there are 12.5 million people at risk of poverty and/or social exclusion, the lowest figure since 2014. However, despite this positive overall figure, the figures also hide another reality: the child poverty rate affects 2.7 million children and adolescents, the highest figure in the European Union.
These are some of the main conclusions of the 15th Annual Report “The State of Poverty,” presented this Tuesday by the Network for the Fight against Poverty and Social Exclusion in the Spanish State (EAPN-ES). The document also reveals that the figures for single-parent households are the most critical, since more than half of these families are at risk of poverty and exclusion (50.3%).
Faced with this situation, the EAPN-ES is calling for urgent and structural measures, as other EU countries have already done. This is the case, for example, in Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania, which, despite having worse rates of poverty and/or social exclusion than Spain, have managed to reduce child poverty since 2015, while in our country it has remained high and constant.
The risk of poverty is decreasing in the country
The risk of poverty and/or social exclusion has decreased in the last year from 26.5% to 25.8% of the population, approximately 12.5 million people (200,000 fewer), the lowest figure since 2014. For EAPN-ES, this is a significant reduction, reflecting the commitment to social policies in recent years, but they warn against figures that have not fallen below 25% of the population since 2014. In other words, at least 1 in 4 people in our country has remained at risk of poverty and/or social exclusion in the last decade, according to EAPN-ES in a statement.
Furthermore, these policies are not sufficiently intensive to protect people living in the most precarious conditions, which makes their situation chronic and hinders their ability to escape poverty. This fact is confirmed by the number of people living in severe poverty, which has remained constant in 2024 and is one point higher than in 2008: 4.1 million people live in households with incomes below €644 per consumption unit per month.
