A reduction in the At-Risk-Of-Poverty or Social Exclusion (AROPE) rate was registered in 2023, the government as said.
In addition, those at risk of poverty and those in severe material deprivation also reduced, the government said, quoting statistics from the National Statistics Office (NSO) regarding family income in 2023, based on the year 2022.
The NSO website also reads: "The AROPE rate defines the proportion/number of people who are either at-risk-of-poverty, or severely materially and socially deprived, or living in households with very low work intensity (applicable only for persons aged 0-64). In the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2023, the AROPE rate was estimated at 19.8%, registering a decrease of 0.3 percentage points from 2022."
"A decrease of 1.9 percentage points can be noted across the 65 and over age group. Thus, the AROPE rate for this cohort stands at 31.4%. On the other hand, an increase can be noted among persons under 18 years, with 2.1 percentage points, thus reaching a rate of 25.2% for this cohort. For the 18-64 age group, the AROPE rate remained unchanged at 15.5%."
The government said that the number of people At Risk of Poverty (ARP) was 16.6%, a 0.1 percentage point reduction when compared to the previous year.
The NSO website also reads that the at-risk-of-poverty rate (ARP) among persons below 18 years of age was calculated at 22%, "increasing by 2.7 percentage points from the previous year. A decrease of 0.2 percentage points was observed for persons aged 18-64, bringing the ARP rate for this age cohort down to 12.1% in 2023. The rate for those aged 65 or more went down to 29%, equivalent to a decrease of 1 percentage points over EU-SILC 2022."
The ministry said that in every category there was an increase in the number of persons as a result of an adjustment done by the NSO in the population size due to the census of 2021. The ministry said that, in fact, this adjustment allowed the NSO to upwardly revise the population size by 20,000 people. It added that this doesn't mean that the population increased by that much in a year but, rather, the adjustment covers a number of years that was fully reflected at once in 2022.
The Minister for Social Policy, Michael Falzon, said that although the general trend is an encouraging and positive one, it remains necessary to work harder to better the quality of life of families. He added that this last study, by the NSO, due to it being based on 2022, still does not include the various measures and raises that were introduced in 2023 and 2024, "including record raises in pensions and child benefits, which certainly made the financial status of Maltese families better."
Permanent Secretary Mark Musu said that these figures confirm that with the economic progress and betterment of pensions and social benefits up to 2022, there was a growth of 7% in the median income available to families, between 2021 and 2022, that reached €37,275. He added that this was the second highest increase in income since 2013 following that registered in 2020 based on the income in 2019.
Musu said that the median family income with one person now reached €18,940, whilst the amount a person alone must exceed to be at risk of poverty has now risen to €11,364. He added that these amounts are 57% higher than those of 2013.