Study reveals rising poverty in Europe

Poverty has forced most Europeans to skip meals during the past three years, according to a survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of the charity French Secours Populaire, which advocates for people on low incomes.

The survey of 10,000 Europeans in 10 nations asked whether money worries had worsened or improved during the preceding three years.

More than half said their situation had worsened, with 29 percent saying they were so short of money that a single unexpected expense would plunge them into difficulty.

The results, published on Monday in the charity's European Barometer on Poverty and Precariousness, found that 38 percent of Europeans were no longer able to eat three meals a day on a regular basis. And 21 percent of parents had skipped meals so that they could feed their children.

People living in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Moldova, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia and the United Kingdom took part in the survey.

The pollsters found the main reason for the poor financial situation in many European households was the fast-rising cost of goods and services, with price inflation having tripled last year and the cost of housing, water and fuel rising by 18 percent during the course of a year. At the same time, wages remained relatively stagnant.

Financial worries

The survey followed other recent worrying assessments of increasing levels of poverty throughout Europe, with the European Union's statistics agency Eurostat reporting that 17 percent of the 27-nation bloc's population was "at risk of poverty" and that only 15 percent of Europeans had enough money not to have financial worries.

Another survey, conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in June, found that 5.7 million low-income households in the UK were so lacking in money that they had insufficient access to food.

And another survey by the Equality Trust found that the gulf between the rich and poor in the UK was actually being exacerbated by the government, which, it concluded, was spending more money than any other European nation on subsidizing the rich through structural inequality.

Priya Sahni-Nicholas, co-executive director of the Equality Trust, told The Guardian the growing chasm between the rich and poor was "causing huge damage" to the economy.

"We have shorter healthy working lives, poorer education systems, more crime, and less happy societies," she said.

The survey released this week for French Secours Populaire found money worries among Europe's population now mean that a significant number of people have turned off heaters, avoided treatment for medical problems, and borrowed as a result.

The survey also found that 1 in 12 in Italy is in "absolute poverty" and relies on discounted food and food banks.