Altogether 318,000 people in Estonia were at risk of poverty or social exclusion last year, up from 305,000, or 23.4 percent of the total population, in 2017.

In 2008, however, a total of 291,000 people, or 21.8 percent of the population, were at risk of poverty in Estonia, indicating an increase of 2.6 percentage points over the past decade.

Across the EU, a total of 109.2 million people, or 21.7 percent of the combined population, lived at risk of poverty or social exclusion last year.

In 2018, more than a quarter of the population was at risk of poverty or social exclusion in seven member states — Bulgaria at 32.8 percent, Romania at 32.5 percent, Greece at 31.8 percent, Latvia at 28.4 percent, Lithuania at 28.3 percent, Italy at 27.3 percent, and Spain at 26.1 percent.

At the opposite end of the scale, the lowest shares of persons at risk of poverty or social exclusion were recorded in the Czech Republic at 12.2 percent, Slovenia at 16.2 percent, Slovakia at 16.3 percent, Finland at 16.5 percent, the Netherlands at 16.7 percent, Denmark and France each at 17.4 percent, and Austria at 17.5 percent.

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