Nearly a quarter of the EU’s population is under threat of impoverishment

23.4 percent of the European Union’s population, 117.5 million people were threatened last year by poverty or social exclusion, according to a report released on Monday by the EU’s Statistical Office (Eurostat).

The proportion of those threatened by impoverishment dropped slightly down from the 23.7 percent of 2015 and from the 24.4 percent of 2014, but still higher with a bit than the figures of 2009 before the financial crisis. One of the goals of the “Europe 2020” strategy is to permanently reduce this proportion. (MTI)