“The Polish economy is growing but extreme poverty has not decreased in 2025,” says report. As many as two million Poles are living in “extreme poverty”, a new report on has found. The Poverty Watch report was published by the Polish branch of the European Anti-Poverty Network to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The annual report monitors poverty levels in Poland and its policies designed to lessen or eradicate the problem. The report defines “extreme poverty” as when a household’s expenditures fall below the subsistence minimum. It also found that around 40.3% of the population, about 15 million people, lived below the “social minimum threshold” needed to cover basic needs such as food and clothing, and maintaining “a modest level of social participation” and family life in 2025. This marks a slight fall from the 2024 figure of 41.3%. The percentage of those living in extreme poverty rose from 5.2% in 2024 to 5.3% last year, but the report’s authors say the difference is too small to draw hard conclusions about a rise in poverty. In 2023, the rate was 6.6%. “The Polish economy is growing, but extreme poverty has not decreased in 2025,” the Poverty Watch authors said, summing up their findings. The authors called for subsistence benefits provided by the state to rise in line with price increases every year, rather than the current system which reviews them every three years. Earlier this year, TVP World reported that Poland had reduced extreme child poverty over the past decade, with the share of children living below that threshold falling from 10.3% in 2014 to 5.4% in 2024.
The percentage of those living in extreme poverty rose from 5.2% in 2024 to 5.3% last year. (PAP/Łukasz Gągulski)
