27.5 million people in the EU experience severe material deprivation

Brussels – Difficulty keeping a house adequately warm, owning a car, taking a week’s holiday away from home, falling behind with bills or mortgage payments, or not being able to afford to replace appliances, play sports, buy new clothes or shoes: all elements of severe material and social deprivation, a condition affecting 27.5 million Europeans and to which national governments struggle to respond. 

The data released by Eurostat for 2024 show a European Union still grappling with a problem of roughly the same scale as five years earlier: from just over 28 million people in economic hardship at the end of 2019, the number has decreased by only around 600,000 — over a five-year period in which the index has fluctuated up and down, remaining more or less at the same levels.

The snapshot taken by the European Statistical Institute at the end of 2024 shows that among EU countries, the highest share of people facing severe material and social deprivation was recorded in Romania (17.2 percent), followed by Bulgaria (16.6 percent) and Greece (14.0 percent). In contrast, the lowest rates were recorded in Slovenia (1.8 percent), Croatia (2 percent), and Poland (2.3 percent). A map that changes if we look at absolute numbers: Germany (5.1 million), France (4.3 million), and Spain (3.9 million) are the states with the highest number of men and women in difficulty. Fifth is Italy, with more than 2.7 million people struggling to get by.

 Data at hand, between 2023 and 2024, there is a slight improvement, with the rate of Europeans in severe material and social deprivation falling to 6.4 percent (-0.4 percentage points) and translating into around 900,000 fewer people at risk of poverty.