SOFIA (Bulgaria), March 16 (SeeNews) – A total of 25.4% of the Romanian population was at risk of poverty in 2015, more than in any other EU member state, according to data released by the bloc's statistical office.
Romania is closely followed by Bulgaria, where 22% of the population was at risk of poverty in 2015, Eurostat announced on Wednesday.
Elsewhere in Southeast Europe, the share of people living at risk of poverty was 20% in Croatia, while in Slovenia it was 14.3% in 2015.
With 25.4%, Serbia had the highest share of the population at risk of poverty among the EU candidate countries included in the statistics. The other EU candidate country from Southeast Europe in the survey – Macedonia, had a ratio of 21.5%.
Romania also posted the widest inequality in the distribution of income in 2015 in terms of the income quintile share ratio, calculated as the ratio of total income received by 20% of the population with the highest income to that received by 20% of the population with the lowest income.
The top 20% of the Romanian population with the highest income earned 8.3 times more than the bottom 20% in 2015.
Bulgaria posted the third highest ratio among the 28 EU member states in 2015 with a ratio of 7.1, while Slovenia had the third lowest ratio of 3.5.
The other EU member state from Southeast Europe – Croatia, posted a ratio of 5.2.
The ratio in Serbia was 9.0 in 2015, while in Macedonia it was 6.6.