Malta’s Rate Of Workers Living In Poverty Worryingly On The Rise In Recent Years
Although Malta’s unemployment rate has reached record lows in recent years, the rate of workers who are living in poverty has witnessed a worrying increase.
Statistics tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana in response to a parliamentary question by PN MP Jason Azzopardi show that the in-work poverty rate climbed from 5.2% in 2012 to 7.4% in 2020, with the biggest year-to-year increase (0.9 percentage points) witnessed in 2020.
The statistics concern people who have been working for at least seven months and who are earning less than 60% of the average national wage.
Caruana attempted to play down the implication of these figures by noting that Malta registered the fifth lowest in-work poverty rate within the Eurozone in 2020, “a relatively better position than it reached in 2012”.
Meanwhile, the rate of employed people who are in a state of serious material deprivation decreased from 5.8% in 2012 to 1.6% in 2020.
What do you make of these figures?
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