Percentage of poor seniors increases in Poland due to 500+
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According to the analysis of the Central Statistical Office (GUS) data, between 2015 and 2018there was a clear increase in the share of elderly people in the population of 20 percent of the poorest Poles. In these three years, the percentage of people aged 65 and over who are among the least wealthy in the population went up from 12.1 percent up to 18.2 percent.
The share of older people in the group experiencing relative income poverty also increased (from about 11 to 17 percent). That is the situation in which the monthly net monetary income is lower than the value considered as the poverty threshold.
Based on another survey, the Central Statistical Office estimated that in 2019 up to 16 percent (from about 9 percent four years earlier), the percentage of elderly people among those suffering from extreme poverty increased. The extreme poverty index is a border that determines the level of satisfaction of needs below which there is a biological threat to human life and psychophysical development.
Why has the percentage of elderly people among the poorest Poles soared? One of the reasons is demographics, but there is a more important one. In the opinion of the Central Statistical Office of Poland, the development of the ‘Family 500+’ program has a significant impact on the increase in the share of seniors in the poorest group – and thus their impoverishment.
"The increase in the share of older people in the population of poor people observed in recent years should not only be explained by the progressive aging of the Polish society. It is also the result of the state's policy of redistributing income and directing large financial support (eg in the form of the Family 500 Plus Program) to the younger segment of society," the GUS stated.
