About 90 million EU citizens live in poverty, and 16 million working people live at the poverty line, and this number is growing.

Omissions

• The MEP conflates two distinct Eurostat indicators: 'at risk of poverty or social exclusion' (AROPE, 92.7 million) and 'at risk of poverty' (AROP, 72.4 million). The claim of 'about 90 million in poverty' matches AROPE, not the narrower poverty indicator. In political discourse AROPE is often referred to as 'poverty', but this is technically imprecise.
• The 16 million working poor figure is stated as a subset ('of which') of the 90 million, but these indicators come from different statistical frameworks and the subset relationship is not exact.
• The claim that the number 'is growing' is weakly supported: the AROP rate increased by only 0.1 percentage points (from 16.2% to 16.3%), which is marginal and described by Eurostat as 'broadly stable'. No source confirms a clear upward trend in the absolute number of working poor.
• The in-work poverty absolute number was not found stated explicitly in any source; it is estimated from the 8.2% rate applied to the EU employed population. The Eurostat DDN 2025-11-03 source only provides the percentage, not the absolute figure.

Sources

• PrimaryEurostat — News article DDN-20260430-1In 2025, 92.7 million people in the EU (20.9% of the population) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion (AROPE).
• PrimaryEurostat — News article DDN-20260526-2EU-SILC 2025, based on 2024 income, shows that 72.4 million people in the EU (16.3% of the population) were at risk of poverty (AROP). This share increased by 0.1 pp compared with the previous wave.
• PrimaryEurostat — News article DDN-20251103-1In 2024, 8.2% of people aged 18 or over who declared to be at work (employed or self-employed) in the EU were at risk of poverty.
• PrimaryEurostat Statistics Explained — Living conditions in EuropeIn 2025, 92.7 million people in the EU were at risk of poverty or social exclusion; this was equivalent to 20.9% of the EU population.