Lithuania had the EU’s highest poverty risk rate last year

One in five people in Lithuania faced the risk of poverty last year, the highest rate in the European Union, according to a review by the National Network of Poverty Reduction Organisations, reported by LRT.

The poverty risk rate was 22.6%, up 1.1 percentage points from 2024. It is calculated using residents’ incomes from the preceding year. The rate was higher only in 2018, when it reached 22.9%, the network’s director, Aistė Adomavičienė, said.

About 653,000 people lived below the poverty risk threshold, which stood at 699 euros a month for one person and 1,468 euros for a household of two adults and two children under 14. The EU average was 16.3%. Latvia had the next-highest rate at 22%, followed by Bulgaria at 21.2%.

Unemployed people, older people, people living alone, people with disabilities and single parents remain among the most vulnerable groups, Adomavičienė said. Over the past five years, poverty risk has risen among pensioners and people with disabilities; the latter face twice the risk of people without disabilities. The risk has also increased among people in work, while it has fallen among children.

A broader measure that combines poverty risk, material deprivation and low work intensity shows that more than one in four people faces at least one form of poverty or social exclusion. This rate has risen in Lithuania since 2021, while the EU figure has remained stable or edged down. The review also put absolute poverty, when people cannot afford basic necessities, at 7%, up 1.2 percentage points from 2024.

Social Security and Labour Minister Inga Ruginienė said Lithuania had seen some positive trends in tackling poverty, but that it remained one of the country’s biggest challenges.