According to the assessment of the average poverty level based on the time required to earn 1 US dollar, Lithuania has been recognized as the poorest country in the European Union (EU), reported the business portal Verslo zinios on Monday.
Citing the Luxembourg Times, the portal notes that according to the 'average poverty' methodology developed by Oxford University economist Olivier Sterck, last year it took nearly 21 minutes of work to earn 1 dollar in the least poor country in the EU – Luxembourg – while in Lithuania it took 76.4 minutes.
According to the portal, last year Lithuania was 3.6 times poorer than Luxembourg and about 3 times poorer than the Netherlands (where it took 24 minutes to earn 1 dollar), Germany (26 minutes), Belgium (27 minutes), and Cyprus (30 minutes). Meanwhile, in Estonia it took 51 minutes, and in Poland – almost 44 minutes. Unfortunately, data for Latvia is not provided in the article.
As previously reported by BNS, the at-risk-of-poverty rate in Lithuania is expected to reach 22.6 percent in 2025, which is 1.1 percentage points higher than in 2024. Last year, about 653,000 residents of the country lived below the at-risk-of-poverty line.
