640,000 Slovaks faced risk of poverty

Some 12.3 percent of the population faced the risk of falling into poverty in 2015. This number of 640,000 Slovaks comes as the result of a survey on household incomes and living conditions released by the Statistics Office on Wednesday. The figure equates to a drop of 0.3 percentage points on the year. As expected, the highest risk of poverty was detected among the unemployed (45.7 percent), a decrease of 3 percentage points on a yearly basis. When it came to the type of household, those with three or more children (32.9 percent) and single-parent households (29.7 percent) were most exposed to the risk of poverty. As far as the working population is concerned, 20 percent of children under 18 in these families still faced a major risk of being exposed to poverty. The 2015 income and living conditions survey was carried out in Slovakia by means of questionnaires in randomly selected households between April-June 2015. The Statistics Office collected data from nearly 6,000 households in over 500 towns and villages across Slovakia.