Poverty in the Czech Republic: A Critical look at EU Indicators

We use the national and international data from EU-SILC survey to compare different indicators of poverty; to compare this data source with administrative data; to compare the time of remaining in poverty according to various indicators; to compare the situation in the Czech Republic with EU countries.

We stress the advantages of a “subjective” poverty indicator based on the percentage of people in households who report they are able make ends meet “with great difficulty” over the EU indicators.

The reason is that the "subjective" indicator takes into account not only income but also expenditures and other circumstances, so that it provides more balanced results regarding stratification, demographic and spatial structure of the population. It reflects the growing attention to the concept of subjective well-being in social sciences as well as in politics and the increasing respect for subjective indicators. Based on this indicator, the Czech Republic loses the first position among the EU countries as a country with the lowest poverty but maintains a very good place, ranked before other transition countries.