EU report says that Spain has one fifth of population below poverty line

DESPITE protestations from the Spanish Government that the economy is recovering, a telling report, just issued by Eurostat, (the European statistical office) indicates that Spain is the fifth poorest country in the European Union and it moves to third place for the country with the poorest residents under 16.

The Spanish poverty level is based on the number of households that take home less than 60 per cent of the average annual income and Spain at 20.7 per cent comes after Romania, Latvia, Bulgaria and Estonia (two places worse than 2019) but as far as poor children are concerned only Romania and Bulgaria have more.

There is a clear divide between the North and South, with some Provinces in the North being as low as 11 per cent whilst those in the South range from 30 per cent to nearly 38 per cent of the population.

Best places to live and not worry so much about poverty are the Czech Republic and Finland at just around 10 per cent, but as the UK has left the European Union, it is not included in the report.