Some 12.6 percent of the population, or 660,000 people in Slovakia, were faced with of poverty in 2014, according to a survey on household incomes and living conditions released by the Statistics Office. Compared to last year's survey, the figure recorded a slight decrease of 0.2 percentage points. Statistics Office chair Ludmila Benkovicova said that the detailed results of the survey confirmed a slightly positive trend in developments in terms of poverty in Slovakia over the past four years. The poverty risk threshold stood at €4,086 per year, which equates to approximately €341 per month in the case of single member households. The figure was €4 higher than in the previous survey.
While the Presov region used to be the most poverty-stricken region in Slovakia for years, Banska Bystrica has now taken its place with 17.1 percent of its people being in poverty in 2014. It is up by 1.5 percentage points on the year. Meanwhile, the risk of poverty last year fell in the Presov region. The Bratislava region has remained the least poverty-stricken region in Slovakia. The poverty risk rate here reached 7.8 percent in 2014.
The highest risk of poverty was found among the unemployed. As regards the type of household, single parent households and those with three or more children were most exposed to the risk of poverty. General Director of the Slovak Statistics Office's demography department Ludmila Ivancikova noted that if somebody is employed, it doesn't automatically mean that they aren't on the brink of poverty. "The poverty risk of the employed last year reached 5.7 percent," she pointed out.
The Statistics Office collected data from nearly 6,000 households in over 450 towns and villages across Slovakia.
Zdroj: TASR
