{"id":6052,"date":"2026-06-30T22:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/?p=6052"},"modified":"2026-06-30T22:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:30:20","slug":"economic-poverty-in-poland-extreme-poverty-stable-but-inequality-remains-deep-45338","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/economic-poverty-in-poland-extreme-poverty-stable-but-inequality-remains-deep-45338\/","title":{"rendered":"Economic Poverty in Poland: Extreme Poverty Stable, but Inequality Remains Deep"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Extreme poverty in Poland remained broadly stable in 2025, but the latest data reveal sharp differences in risk across social groups and places of residence. Farmers, larger families and residents of rural areas outside major urban centres were among those most exposed, while relative poverty rose to 13.5%, highlighting the persistent gap between lower-income households and average consumption levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!-- ============ ECONOMIC POVERTY IN POLAND 2025 \u2014 CEO.com.pl ============ -->\n<!-- Standalone WordPress Custom HTML block. 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white-space:nowrap;\n    }\n    .ub25-table th:first-child{text-align:left}\n    .ub25-table td{\n      padding:12px 14px;\n      border-bottom:1px solid var(--ceo-line);\n      text-align:right;\n      white-space:nowrap;\n    }\n    .ub25-table td:first-child{\n      text-align:left;\n      white-space:normal;\n      color:#2d3748;\n      font-weight:650;\n    }\n    .ub25-table tbody tr:nth-child(even){background:#fafbfc}\n    .ub25-table tbody tr:last-child td{border-bottom:none}\n    .ub25-table .top-row td{\n      color:var(--ceo-navy);\n      font-weight:800;\n      background:#f0f5fb;\n    }\n    .ub25-table .risk{\n      color:#a94519;\n      font-weight:800;\n    }\n\n    .ub25-method{\n      background:#fbfcfe;\n      border-top:1px solid var(--ceo-line);\n      border-bottom:1px solid var(--ceo-line);\n      padding:25px 0;\n      margin:42px 0 0;\n    }\n    .ub25-method h3{margin-top:0}\n    .ub25-method ul{\n      padding-left:20px;\n      margin:10px 0 0;\n    }\n    .ub25-method li{margin:8px 0}\n\n    .ub25-source{\n      margin:28px 0 0;\n      font-size:13px;\n      color:var(--ceo-muted);\n      line-height:1.55;\n    }\n\n    @media(max-width:760px){\n      .ub25-wrap{font-size:16px}\n      .ub25-lead{font-size:18px}\n      .ub25-hero{padding:24px 20px}\n      .ub25-hero h2{font-size:25px}\n      .ub25-grid{grid-template-columns:repeat(2,1fr)}\n      .ub25-stat{min-height:128px}\n      .ub25-stat strong{font-size:29px}\n      .ub25-chart{padding:16px 12px}\n      .ub25-chart-head{display:block}\n      .ub25-chart-label{margin-top:9px}\n      .ub25-chart-box{height:360px}\n      .ub25-wrap h2{font-size:25px}\n    }\n\n    @media(max-width:420px){\n      .ub25-grid{grid-template-columns:1fr}\n      .ub25-chart-box{height:330px}\n    }\n  <\/style>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-kicker\">Social data \u00b7 Poland 2025<\/div>\n\n  <section class=\"ub25-hero\">\n    <h2>Extreme poverty did not rise, but risk remains highly uneven<\/h2>\n    <p>\n      According to Statistics Poland (GUS), 5.3% of people in 2025 lived in households whose expenditure was below the subsistence minimum. This was a level very close to that recorded in 2024. At the same time, the relative poverty rate rose to 13.5%, pointing to the continued gap between part of the population and the average level of consumption.\n    <\/p>\n  <\/section>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-grid\">\n    <div class=\"ub25-stat\">\n      <strong>5.3%<\/strong>\n      <span>At risk of extreme poverty in 2025<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"ub25-stat orange\">\n      <strong>13.5%<\/strong>\n      <span>At risk of relative poverty<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"ub25-stat red\">\n      <strong>8.1%<\/strong>\n      <span>At risk of statutory poverty<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"ub25-stat green\">\n      <strong>40.3%<\/strong>\n      <span>Risk of deprivation<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <p>\n    Statistics Poland data show that in 2025 the situation measured against the subsistence minimum did not change materially from the previous year. In 2024, 5.2% of people were at risk of extreme poverty, compared with 5.3% a year later. The difference is small and, as GUS stresses, should be interpreted cautiously because the Household Budget Survey is sample-based.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <p>\n    The relative poverty rate paints a different picture. It measures the share of people living in households whose expenditure is below half of average household expenditure. In 2025, it reached 13.5%, up from 13.3% a year earlier and 11.7% in 2022. This does not automatically mean that every affected household experienced an absolute deterioration in living standards. It does show, however, that part of society remains clearly below the average level of consumption.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-note\">\n    <strong>Important:<\/strong> the increase in the statutory poverty rate from 2.6% to 8.1% should not be read as a sudden, threefold deterioration in Poles\u2019 material situation. In 2025, income thresholds qualifying people for social assistance were raised, so the indicator primarily reflects the potentially wider scope of people covered by the assistance system.\n  <\/div>\n\n  <h2>Three measures, three different pictures of household circumstances<\/h2>\n\n  <p>\n    GUS uses three main poverty thresholds. Extreme poverty is defined by the subsistence minimum \u2014 a level of expenditure regarded as necessary for biological survival. Relative poverty is measured against the average level of household expenditure in the country. Statutory poverty, in turn, is linked to the income thresholds used in the social assistance system.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-table-wrap\">\n    <table class=\"ub25-table\">\n      <caption>Key poverty-risk indicators in Poland<\/caption>\n      <thead>\n        <tr>\n          <th>Indicator<\/th>\n          <th>2023<\/th>\n          <th>2024<\/th>\n          <th>2025<\/th>\n          <th>Year-on-year change<\/th>\n        <\/tr>\n      <\/thead>\n      <tbody>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Extreme poverty<\/td>\n          <td>6.6%<\/td>\n          <td>5.2%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">5.3%<\/td>\n          <td>+0.1 pp<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Relative poverty<\/td>\n          <td>12.2%<\/td>\n          <td>13.3%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">13.5%<\/td>\n          <td>+0.2 pp<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Statutory poverty<\/td>\n          <td>4.1%<\/td>\n          <td>2.6%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">8.1%<\/td>\n          <td>+5.5 pp<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Risk of deprivation<\/td>\n          <td>46.0%<\/td>\n          <td>41.3%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">40.3%<\/td>\n          <td>-1.0 pp<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n      <\/tbody>\n    <\/table>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-chart\">\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-head\">\n      <h3>Poverty in Poland: trend since 2010<\/h3>\n      <span class=\"ub25-chart-label\">% of people<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-box\">\n      <canvas id=\"ub25Trend\"><\/canvas>\n    <\/div>\n    <p class=\"ub25-chart-caption\">\n      Since 2016, extreme poverty has generally remained lower than in the first half of the previous decade. The statutory poverty indicator is strongly affected by changes to social assistance eligibility criteria.\n    <\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-insight\">\n    <div class=\"ub25-insight-icon\">1<\/div>\n    <div>\n      <strong>Higher thresholds, not necessarily greater deprivation<\/strong>\n      <p>In the fourth quarter of 2025, the subsistence minimum for a one-person household was PLN 1,037, while the relative poverty threshold was PLN 1,332. The statutory threshold rose to PLN 1,010 for a person living alone.<\/p>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <h2>Who was most exposed to extreme poverty?<\/h2>\n\n  <p>\n    The highest extreme-poverty rate was recorded among farming households: 17.5% of people in these households lived below the subsistence minimum. High rates were also seen among disability pension recipients and people relying mainly on other non-earned sources of income, at 12.1% in both groups. By comparison, the rate was 4.4% in employee households and 4.3% in pensioner households.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-chart\">\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-head\">\n      <h3>Extreme poverty by main source of income<\/h3>\n      <span class=\"ub25-chart-label\">2024 vs 2025<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-box\">\n      <canvas id=\"ub25Groups\"><\/canvas>\n    <\/div>\n    <p class=\"ub25-chart-caption\">\n      The largest year-on-year change is visible among farming households and disability pension recipients. Results for smaller groups should be interpreted with standard errors in mind.\n    <\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-table-wrap\">\n    <table class=\"ub25-table\">\n      <caption>Extreme poverty by socio-economic group in 2025<\/caption>\n      <thead>\n        <tr>\n          <th>Household group<\/th>\n          <th>Extreme poverty<\/th>\n          <th>Relative poverty<\/th>\n          <th>Statutory poverty<\/th>\n          <th>Deprivation<\/th>\n        <\/tr>\n      <\/thead>\n      <tbody>\n        <tr class=\"top-row\">\n          <td>Total<\/td>\n          <td>5.3%<\/td>\n          <td>13.5%<\/td>\n          <td>8.1%<\/td>\n          <td>40.3%<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Employees<\/td>\n          <td>4.4%<\/td>\n          <td>12.5%<\/td>\n          <td>7.4%<\/td>\n          <td>38.8%<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Farmers<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">17.5%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">33.3%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">24.5%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">67.7%<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Self-employed<\/td>\n          <td>4.2%<\/td>\n          <td>9.6%<\/td>\n          <td>6.6%<\/td>\n          <td>34.4%<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Pensioners<\/td>\n          <td>4.3%<\/td>\n          <td>11.0%<\/td>\n          <td>5.0%<\/td>\n          <td>37.4%<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Disability pension recipients<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">12.1%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">25.8%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">12.2%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">53.7%<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Other non-earned sources of income<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">12.1%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">24.3%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">18.8%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">59.3%<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n      <\/tbody>\n    <\/table>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <h2>Children and large families: risk rises with the number of dependants<\/h2>\n\n  <p>\n    Among married and cohabiting couples, the risk of extreme poverty rose with the number of children. The rate was 0.9% for households without children, 1.4% for those with one child, 3.1% for those with two, and 6.0% for households with at least three children.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <p>\n    An even higher risk concerned people living in households with at least three children or other people aged 0\u201317. In this group, the extreme-poverty rate was 8.9%, compared with 3.8% in households without anyone aged 0\u201317.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-chart\">\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-head\">\n      <h3>Extreme poverty and the number of dependent children<\/h3>\n      <span class=\"ub25-chart-label\">2024 vs 2025<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-box\">\n      <canvas id=\"ub25Families\"><\/canvas>\n    <\/div>\n    <p class=\"ub25-chart-caption\">\n      The data cover married and cohabiting couples. A dependent child is a person aged 0\u201314, or a person aged 15\u201325 without their own source of income and without a separate household.\n    <\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-insight\">\n    <div class=\"ub25-insight-icon\">2<\/div>\n    <div>\n      <strong>Children have the highest age-specific extreme-poverty rate<\/strong>\n      <p>Among people aged 0\u201317, the rate was 6.6%. It stood at 5.4% for those aged 18\u201364 and 4.1% for people aged 65 and over.<\/p>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <h2>Rural areas outside metropolitan regions remain most exposed<\/h2>\n\n  <p>\n    Place of residence remains one of the strongest factors differentiating extreme-poverty risk. The rate was 9.5% in rural areas, compared with 2.5% in cities. The most difficult situation was seen in rural areas outside metropolitan regions, where 11.3% of people lived below the subsistence minimum.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <p>\n    At the same time, rural areas within metropolitan regions differed markedly from the rest of the countryside. There, the rate was 3.9%, closer to the level seen in cities than to that in rural areas far from major economic centres.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-chart\">\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-head\">\n      <h3>Extreme poverty by place of residence<\/h3>\n      <span class=\"ub25-chart-label\">2024 vs 2025<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-box\">\n      <canvas id=\"ub25Location\"><\/canvas>\n    <\/div>\n    <p class=\"ub25-chart-caption\">\n      In 2025, the difference between rural areas outside metropolitan regions and cities with at least 500,000 inhabitants was 10.2 percentage points.\n    <\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-table-wrap\">\n    <table class=\"ub25-table\">\n      <caption>Extreme poverty by educational attainment of the household reference person<\/caption>\n      <thead>\n        <tr>\n          <th>Education of household reference person<\/th>\n          <th>2024<\/th>\n          <th>2025<\/th>\n          <th>Year-on-year change<\/th>\n        <\/tr>\n      <\/thead>\n      <tbody>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Higher education<\/td>\n          <td>2.2%<\/td>\n          <td>1.7%<\/td>\n          <td>-0.5 pp<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Secondary education<\/td>\n          <td>4.5%<\/td>\n          <td>4.4%<\/td>\n          <td>-0.1 pp<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Basic vocational \/ sectoral education<\/td>\n          <td>8.3%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">8.9%<\/td>\n          <td>+0.6 pp<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n        <tr>\n          <td>Lower secondary or below<\/td>\n          <td>10.8%<\/td>\n          <td class=\"risk\">14.3%<\/td>\n          <td>+3.5 pp<\/td>\n        <\/tr>\n      <\/tbody>\n    <\/table>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <h2>Deprivation affects a much larger share of society<\/h2>\n\n  <p>\n    Alongside extreme poverty, GUS also analyses the risk of deprivation \u2014 a situation in which a household\u2019s expenditure is insufficient to meet a broader set of social needs, such as education, participation in working life, maintaining social relationships or limited participation in culture.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <p>\n    In 2025, 40.3% of people were at risk of deprivation, down from 41.3% a year earlier. Despite the decline, the rate remains high. The situation was particularly difficult for farming households, where deprivation affected 67.7% of people, and for disability pension recipient households, where it affected 53.7%.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"ub25-chart\">\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-head\">\n      <h3>Extreme poverty and deprivation: two different levels of risk<\/h3>\n      <span class=\"ub25-chart-label\">2010\u20132025<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"ub25-chart-box\">\n      <canvas id=\"ub25Deprivation\"><\/canvas>\n    <\/div>\n    <p class=\"ub25-chart-caption\">\n      Deprivation is not the same as extreme poverty. It refers to a higher consumption threshold based on the social minimum.\n    <\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <h2>Conclusions: national stability does not mean equal circumstances<\/h2>\n\n  <p>\n    The 2025 data do not show a material deterioration in the overall extreme-poverty rate. They do not mean, however, that the problem has been solved. Risk remains concentrated in particular groups: farmers, disability pension recipients, people with lower levels of education, residents of rural areas outside metropolitan regions and families with more children.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <p>\n    The main conclusion from the GUS data therefore concerns not only the scale of the phenomenon, but also its structure. The national average conceals very large differences between households. For social policy, this means that not only cash transfers matter, but also access to jobs, transport, public services, education and childcare \u2014 particularly outside the largest cities.\n  <\/p>\n\n  <section class=\"ub25-method\">\n    <h3>How to read the data?<\/h3>\n    <ul>\n      <li><strong>Extreme poverty<\/strong> \u2014 expenditure below the subsistence minimum determined by the Institute of Labour and Social Studies (IPiSS).<\/li>\n      <li><strong>Relative poverty<\/strong> \u2014 expenditure below 50% of average household expenditure.<\/li>\n      <li><strong>Statutory poverty<\/strong> \u2014 an indicator based on social assistance income thresholds; its changes also depend on legal amendments.<\/li>\n      <li><strong>Deprivation<\/strong> \u2014 expenditure below the social minimum, a level allowing limited participation in social life.<\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n  <\/section>\n\n  <p class=\"ub25-source\">\n    <strong>Data source:<\/strong> Statistics Poland (GUS), \u201cThe extent of economic poverty in Poland in 2025\u201d and the publication\u2019s statistical annex, released on 30 June 2026. 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class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Extreme poverty in Poland remained broadly stable in 2025, but the latest data reveal sharp differences in risk across social groups and places of residence. Farmers, larger families and residents of rural areas outside major urban centres were among those most exposed, while relative poverty rose to 13.5%, highlighting the persistent gap between lower-income households [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Extreme poverty in Poland remained broadly stable in 2025, affecting 5.3% of people. But the national figure masks major differences between households, regions and social groups.\n\nThe highest risk was recorded among farmers, people living in rural areas outside major urban centres, larger families and households with lower levels of education. In rural areas outside agglomerations, 11.3% of residents lived below the subsistence minimum, compared with 2.5% in cities.\n\nRelative poverty also increased to 13.5%, underlining that a significant share of households remains well below the country\u2019s average level of consumption.\n\nOur analysis of the latest Statistics Poland data looks beyond the headline number \u2014 examining where poverty is concentrated, how family structure affects risk and why changes in legal thresholds can alter the picture of social assistance.\n\n#Poland #Economy #Poverty #SocialPolicy #DataAnalysis #StatisticsPoland #RuralPoland #Inequality\n","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[2690,2669,64,2692],"class_list":["post-6052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reports-analysis","tag-gap","tag-gus","tag-poland","tag-sharp"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6053,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6052\/revisions\/6053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ceo.com.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}