Fewer Polish children at risk of poverty: Eurostat

The plunge marks the biggest drop in the rate for Poland since the country entered the European Union in 2004, the Dziennik daily reported, citing Eurostat.

Last year, 17.9 percent of children in Poland were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, down from 24.2 percent in 2016.

Poland was outpaced only by Romania, where the proportion of children at risk of poverty or social exclusion declined by 7.5 percentage points to 41.7 percent in 2017, according to Eurostat.

The agency is yet to release data from countries such as Ireland, Croatia, Serbia and Turkey.

Eradicating child poverty is one of the key goals of the Polish government’s flagship "500-plus" child benefit programme.

Poland’s socially conservative Law and Justice government, which came to power in late 2015, aims to ease the burdens of child rearing by giving families with two or more children a handout of PLN 500 (USD 145, EUR 118) a month per child.

Poorer families receive the allowance even if they have just one child.

(aba/gs)

Source: Dziennik