site.btaPoorest People in Bulgaria No Longer Rank Last in EU in Access to Nutritious Food

In 2023, 9.5% of the EU population was unable to afford a meal containing meat, fish or a vegetarian equivalent every other day, up 1.2 percentage points (pp) from 2022 (8.3%), according to Eurostat data released on Friday.

Among people at risk of poverty (those earning less than 60% of a country's average disposable income), the share of the population that cannot afford nutritious food is 22.3% in the EU, or 2.6 pp higher than 2022.

The proportion of people at risk of poverty who cannot afford an adequate diet is highest in Slovakia (45.7%), followed by Hungary (44.9%) and Bulgaria (40.2%). 

Thus, for the first time Bulgaria is not in last place in this indicator.

In 2007, when Bulgaria joined the EU, the proportion of Bulgarians with the lowest incomes who could not afford an adequate living was 88.5%.

Of the total population in the country in 2023, 19.9% could not afford an adequate living. Thus, for the second year in a row, Bulgaria is not last in the ranking - only Romania is behind with 23.3%.