BR Analysis. Almost 600,000 Romanians escaped extreme poverty during the last year but many remain at risk

The number of Romanians living in extreme poverty declined by 599,000 in 2018, as rising employment and wages offered more opportunities to the less fortunate people, but many remain at risk, according to Business Review calculations based on Eurostat data.

In 2017, 3.88 million Romanians were considered “severely materially deprived”, a measure of extreme poverty in the European Union countries, but the number declined to 3.281 million in 2018.

But the evolution is even more spectacular since the EU accession of Romania. In 2007, more than 8 million Romanians were considered “severely materially deprived” – and this means that 4.7 million people in Romania have escaped extreme poverty following the EU accession.

The number of „severely materially deprived people” in Romania decreased almost constantly during the last decade, with the exception of 2012, when the number rose following the financial crisis.

In 2017, the number of Romanians living in extreme poverty declined by 827,000, from 4.7 million persons, Eurostat series suggest.

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However, one in six Romanians (16.8 percent) is still considered severely materially deprived, the second highest rate among the 28 European Union member states, after Bulgaria (20.9 percent), and close to Greece (16.7 percent).

In the EU, only 6.2 percent of total population was considered severely materially deprived last year.

The indicator is defined as the percentage of population with an enforced lack of at least three out of nine material deprivation items in the ‘economic strain and durables’ dimension.

Many at risk

But many Romanians who escaped severe poverty are still at risk of poverty or social exclusion in case of economic downturn, EU official data show.

In 2017, more than 1 out of 3 Romanians (35.7 percent) were considered “at risk of poverty or social exclusion”. This means that 7.04 million people in the country are at risk of poverty or severely materially deprived or living in households with very low work intensity, according to Eurostat definition.

In the EU, only Bulgaria has a larger percentage of population at risk of poverty or social exclusion (38.9 percent in 2017).