79 million EU citizens are at-risk-of-poverty in 2007, of whom 32 million were also materially deprived

In 2007, 16% of the population was assessed to be at-risk-of-poverty following the concept of relative poverty adopted in the European Union. The risk of poverty is more than 30% for the elderly population in Cyprus, Estonia and Latvia. Among children, the at-risk-of poverty rate is highest in Italy, Romania, Spain and Poland. Social protection reduces poverty by 36% on average in the EU. A new indicator of material deprivation completes the social exclusion picture. New Member States (Romania, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Cyprus, Lithuania and Slovakia) have the highest shares of the population who are materially deprived. Finally, 32 million people could be considered as both at-risk-of-poverty and materially deprived.