The communities of Andalusia (37.5%), Canary Islands, (33.8%) and Extremadura (32.8%) have the highest poverty rates, while at the other extreme are Basque Country (15.5%) and Navarra (18.6%), followed by Madrid and, in general, all the communities of the northern half.
This is according to the Report on the State of Poverty 2024, focused on studying the variables of "Poverty and territory", signed by the European Network of the Fight against Poverty and Social Exclusion in the Spanish State (EAPN-ES) and presented this Monday in the Senate.
Last year the community with the highest poverty rate was Extremadura (36.9%), followed by the Canary Islands (36.2%) and Andalusia (35.8%).
The report points out the existence of two Spains, but this time the division crosses Madrid to the south, leaving the poor half below. Baleares is on the list of the best placed. "The division of Spain into two halves with very different living realities is evident," the report notes.
And it points out: "The communities that are from Madrid to the north retain low rates of poverty and/or social exclusion -between 0.8 and 11.5 percentage points below the national average-, even lower than the average European rates; and those located to the south maintain extraordinarily high rates -between 1.5 and 10.9 percentage points above the national average and, as a whole, higher than any EU (27) country".
"If all aid and benefits were eliminated, 10.8 million people throughout the country would fall into poverty," the study adds, before pointing out that "mere economic growth is not enough to reduce poverty".
And then it returns to the territorial factor by pointing out that "despite the increase in GDP in all the Autonomous Communities since 2015, the poverty rate has only decreased in ten of them" and, especially, in Cantabria, Aragon, Basque Country and Asturias, the regions where transfers reduce poverty with greater intensity.
In any case, the effect that public policies against poverty have in our country is less than in other European nations.
And so, the report points out that, "even considering the importance of these transfers, the effect is less than in other countries of the European Union (EU): while in our country they allow to reduce poverty by 52.6%, in Germany they do so by 64.9%, in France by 67.2% and in Finland by 70.7%".
In addition, the report denounces "the effects of successive crises and the increased cost of living derived from inflation and the high cost of housing", which "have caused an increase in the risk of poverty or social exclusion (AROPE rate) throughout the country, which has gone from 26% in 2022 to 26.5% in 2023, affecting 12.7 million people".