POVERTY WATCH 2020 POLAND. Monitoring poverty and social policy against poverty in Poland in 2019 and the first half of 2020
In 2011, as part of the implementation of the EU 2020 Strategy, the Polish Government assumed that by 2020, the number of Poles living in poverty would be 1.5 million fewer. In the EU as a whole, this was to be 20 million fewer people. As EAPN Poland, we have repeatedly pointed out that the target adopted by Poland is inadequate and lower than the possibilities.
By 2019, not 1.5 million Poles had come out of poverty, but a total of 4.8 million, which was already a quarter of the EU target. This is mainly due to the decrease in the indicator based on declarations by Polish families about affordability of nine needs (severe material deprivation). The scope of deprivation measured in this way has been systematically decreasing since 2013. – From 13.5% in 2012 to 3.6% in 2019.
We expect that the new National Programme for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion 2021-2027 will include such objectives and actions which will enable a further 4.8 million Poles to escape from poverty in the next decade.
We propose targets for the National Programme for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion based on the Sustainable Development Goals approach, i.e. reducing poverty and social exclusion by at least half.