12.5% Finns face risk of poverty in 2020

There were 678,800 people at risk of poverty, or 12.5 per cent of the dwelling population in the country in 2020, according to Statistics Finland.

The number of persons at risk of poverty, however, decreased in 2020. One year previously, the number of persons at risk of poverty was 721,100, or 13.4 per cent of the household-dwelling population.

The number of children at risk of poverty was 114,300 in 2020, while one year earlier it was 128,100. The share of children at risk of poverty among all children decreased from 12.4 to 11.1 per cent. The risk of poverty decreased most among children aged 0 to 3, from 15.4 to 13.4 per cent.

The risk of poverty decreased in all other age groups except among people in their 20s. The at-risk-poverty rate of persons aged 20 to 23 grew from 33.3 to 35.1 per cent. In relative terms, the risk of poverty decreased most among persons aged over 80. The risk of poverty among the oldest age group, those aged 88 or over, decreased by 3.5 percentage points. Despite the decrease, the at-risk-of-poverty rate of the age group is highest after young people, 26.9 per cent.

At-risk-of-poverty describes the relative income differentials of medium-income and low-income groups, so the development of risk of poverty depends not only on the income development of low-income household-dwelling units, but also on the development of median income.

In relative terms, persons are classified as being at risk of poverty if the household-dwelling unit's disposable monetary income per consumption unit 1) is below 60 per cent of the median income of the entire household-dwelling population in the year in question.

The median for household-dwelling units' disposable monetary income (incl. capital gains) was EUR 26,227 per consumption unit in 2020, while one year earlier it was EUR 26,180 (in the value of 2020 money). A household-dwelling unit was recorded as being at risk of poverty, when its income was at most EUR 15,736 per consumption unit in 2020.