Poverty in Poland. Waldemar Buda: “we have reduced the greatest poverty.” What does the data show?

After Donald Trump's victory in the presidential elections in the United States on November 6, 2024, PiS MP Patryk Jaki described on website To that reacted PiS MEP Waldemar Buda, Minister of Development in the United Right government. “Complete misunderstanding of Donald Trump's narrative,” he said in the first sentence. “Trump, as a conservative and representative of the right-wing, referred to economic issues in 80 percent of his message! Domestic and global. Cost of living, competitiveness of the economy, impoverishment of the middle class, domination of the so-called common production by China. The exit poll confirms exactly this. For People's choice criteria was the issue of democracy and the economy, and in this field Donald Trump won! – added Buda (original spelling of posts).

Then, MEP Buda compared the situation in the USA to the situation in Poland, emphasizing the successes of the government of which he was a member. “Donald Trump showed economic parameters by contrasting the time of his presidency with the term of office of Joe Biden. It is exactly the same in Poland. Today, the cost of living and the condition of the economy have significantly deteriorated,” he wrote, then added:

We checked how, according to Polish and EU statistics, the process of “reducing the greatest poverty” progressed during the rule of the United Right.

Data on poverty and poverty are collected by both national and international offices. They define poverty differently depending on the categories adopted, but generally it is the inability to meet one's needs due to insufficient income in the household. The Central Statistical Office establishes three different ones every year poverty lines – extreme, relative and statutory – and if the level of expenditure of a given household does not exceed these levels, its members are considered poor. EU Eurostat risk of poverty calls the situation in which the income is lower than 60%. median income in a given country, even including social benefits.

Waldemar Buda said that the PiS government had reduced “the greatest poverty, including among children”, so we analyzed the statistics on extreme poverty, also among children. The Central Statistical Office defines extreme poverty as a very low level of satisfaction of needs, making survival difficult and posing a threat to human psychophysical development. In 2023, these were expenses below PLN 913 per month in a single-person household or PLN 2,465 in a four-person household (two adults and two children).

In 2015, when PiS took power, the extreme poverty rate in Poland according to the Central Statistical Office was 6.5 percent among the entire population. After the first term, in 2019, the rate was reduced to 4.2%. The period of the COVID-19 pandemic again increased the level of extreme poverty – to 5.2%. In 2022, the rate was 4.6%. and was lower than at the beginning of the PiS government. However, the situation has significantly worsened between 2022 and 2023: in the last year of the United Right government, extreme poverty affected 6.6 percent. Poles – so it was a higher rate than at the beginning of this formation's rule.

They reported on this alarming increase in extreme poverty already in October 2023 Polish media. The reason for this – apart from the publication of data by the Central Statistical Office – was report Polish Committee of the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN Polska). It warned that Poland was “on the brink of social crisis” because 2.5 million Poles live in extreme poverty. The report states that the reason for such a situation in 2023 was galloping inflation “eating Poles' savings and real incomes”, economic stagnation with minimal GDP growth and the lack of effective indexation of social benefits, including 500 plus (they were increased only from January 1, 2024). “The increase in prices combined with the lack of a real increase in wages and benefits has resulted in more and more people balancing on the verge of minimum wage and sliding into extreme poverty,” experts said.

The increase in the poverty level in Poland in 2023 can also be seen in EU Eurostat datawhich, however, adopts a different method of elaboration. It does not distinguish a separate category of extreme poverty – it examines the risk of poverty, i.e. the situation in which a person's income does not exceed 60%. the median income of a given country. Such a person is not yet defined as poor (let alone extremely poor), but at risk of not meeting all their life needs due to too low income. For this reason, Eurostat data is not comparable to national data on extreme poverty or economic poverty levels.

And so according to Eurostat the at-risk-of-poverty rate in Poland in 2015 was 22.5%. It has been declining since then, and in 2022 it reached a record low of 15.9%. However, in 2023 it increased again – to 16.3%. It is worth noting that despite this, it is the fifth best result in the European Union. Only the Dutch (15.8%), Finns (15.8%), Slovenians (13.7%) and Czechs (12%) have a lower percentage of the population at risk of poverty.

Despite a different methodology and data category used by Eurostat, these statistics also show a deterioration in the financial situation of low-income people between 2022 and 2023.

Since Waldemar Buda also mentioned reducing the greatest poverty among children, we also analyzed the statistics by age. According to data from the Central Statistical Office, extreme poverty in 2015 concerned 9%. people up to 17 years old. Like the rate for the entire population, it also began to decline in 2016 – in the following years it fluctuated between 4.5 and 6 percent.

Unfortunately, the increase in the level of extreme poverty in Poland in 2023 did not exclude the child population. In 2022, there were 5.7% of them, but in 2023 it will be 7.6 percent. As calculated in the EAPN report, this translates into 522,000. children living in extremely poor families. The authors found that an increase of 125,000 between 2022 and 2023 children (32%) “thus takes us away from the goal of completely eliminating this problem.”

This is confirmed – although on a smaller scale, which results from a different methodology – by EU data. According to Eurostat in 2015 in Poland as much as 26.8 percent people up to 18 years of age were at risk of poverty. Over the next five years, their number decreased – in 2020, 16.1% of children were at risk of poverty in Poland. But then the indicator started to increase: in 2021 to 16.5%, in 2022 – to 16.7%, and in 2023 – up to 16.9 percent

To sum up: the United Right government managed to reduce the overall rate of extreme poverty in Poland until 2022. However, in 2023 – mainly due to inflation, which the government was unable to limit – the number of people living below the extreme poverty threshold increased so much that at the end of the year there were more of them in Poland than in 2015.

The statistics on poverty among children show a better situation. Thanks to, among other things, the 500 plus benefit, the percentage of such children was reduced by half during the rule of the United Right. However, in 2023 their number did not increase again, which is why the authors of the report called 2023 “the year of failure in the policy of reducing child poverty.” “This happened mainly because social policy was not properly prepared for the time of high inflation,” they said.

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