33.8% of the population of the Canary Islands is at risk of poverty, 65% have difficulty making ends meet, and 53% cannot cope with unexpected expenses.
This is according to the annual report of the European Network to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion presented this Tuesday in the Canarian Parliament.
The Canary Islands is historically the autonomous community with the highest indicators, warned Fernando Rodríguez, vice president of the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN), a European platform of social entities that work and fight against poverty and social exclusion in the member countries of the European Union.
He also warned that 19% of the islands' population is behind on rent or mortgage payments, 14% are behind on utility bills, and 27% cannot afford to keep their homes at an adequate temperature. The Canary Islands also leads in all these percentages.
According to this report on the state of poverty in the islands, in the Canary Islands one in three people is at risk of poverty and social exclusion, that is, 748,000 people.
People who are considered at risk of poverty are those with an income of less than 785 euros per month, which affects 26% of the population, and in a situation of severe poverty when their income is below 560 euros per month, 9.7% of the archipelago's population.
Despite these data, which only Andalusia exceeds, this year the trend has been reaffirmed and for the third consecutive year the rate of poverty and social exclusion has been reduced in a "gradual and very slow" manner.
However, this decrease does not seem sufficient to reduce poverty rates by half by 2030, as set by the European Union, since the Canary Islands currently has an average poverty rate of 33.8% compared to the 26.5% at the state level.
This percentage could have reached 51% if the Government of the Canary Islands had not applied measures such as subsidies, benefits, pensions and minimum incomes that act as a "social cushion" and have helped "reduce poverty or, at least, not increase so much", said the EAPN spokesperson.
In addition, he drew attention to child poverty in the Canary Islands, which maintains "unbearable" figures, since, as he detailed, 44.5% of this population under 18 years of age is at risk of poverty and social exclusion, and despite reducing by 3.3 points compared to the previous year, it presents a "very high" rate compared to other age groups.
Feminization of poverty
He also highlighted that "the feminization of poverty continues to be a structural problem", since 35.2% of women on the islands are at risk of poverty, a figure that has also decreased compared to the previous year.
In the opinion of the vice president of EAPN, having a job in the Canary Islands, where the average income of the family unit is around 1,200 euros, is sometimes not enough to escape poverty, even more so if the high cost of living is added, which prevents many people from being able to save, have vacations or access culture.
For this reason, 42% of Canarians cannot afford to go on vacation for a week a year, 38% cannot afford to replace damaged furniture, 12% cannot replace clothing and 21% cannot spend a small amount of money on themselves each week, according to the report.
Part of the problem, according to Fernando Rodríguez, is that a high percentage of the salary is spent on paying for housing, which in metropolitan and stressed areas costs more than 700 euros, and also that only 2% of the houses in the Canary Islands are public.
In this context, Fernando Rodríguez has demanded a pact against poverty and social exclusion, the improvement of public policies related to childhood and housing, while demanding long-term structural measures and not emergency measures.
