It was in the group of children and young people that the risk of poverty rate worsened the most, as well as in families with dependent children, says Pordata, in a statement, highlighting “the greatest increase in the poverty intensity rate in the last decade”.

“Looking at the intensity of poverty, there is the biggest increase since 2012, of 3.9 percentage points, reaching 25.6% in 2022 (21.7% in 2021)”, observed the technicians from the database of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation.

The poverty intensity rate measures the distance between the median income of the population at risk of poverty in relation to the value of the poverty threshold, that is, the depth of poverty.

“In Portugal, half of the poor had, in 2022, a disposable monetary income 25.6% below the poverty line, and this depth increased compared to 2021”, reads the document released by Pordata, on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

One in 10 workers is poor, which should be seen as “a factor of concern”.

The incidence of poverty in the unemployed group, which had decreased between 2020 and 2021, rose again: 3.3 percentage points, compared to 2021.

According to Pordata, this is “one of the biggest increases in the last decade”, with the exception of the pandemic year.

In an analysis of the evolution of poverty and associated factors, Pordata also highlighted that in 2023, Portugal saw the purchase price of houses more than double, compared to 2015, well above the value recorded at the European Union level, of 48%.

“Comparing this increase with the variation in the average remuneration of employees, we see that, in relation to 2015, salaries in Portugal increased by 35%, well below the 105% increase in households”, the statisticians found.

Almost 40% of the population lives in households without the ability to replace furniture or pay for a week's vacation.

Likewise, 30.5% of the population is unable to meet an unexpected expense without taking out a loan.

Pordata's assessment was based on the most recent data made available by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

The thermal comfort of homes continues to be a critical point, since in the European context, Portugal stands out in the negative, reporting, along with Spain, “the highest proportion” of people living in households without the capacity to maintain their home adequately heated: 20.8%, that is, one in every five people. At the opposite end of the European ranking is Luxembourg, where only 2.1% of inhabitants report this economic difficulty.

Almost a third of single-parent families with dependent children live on less than 591 euros per month.

Portugal has 2.1 million poor people.