Number of poor people in Denmark rising: report

A person is considered poor if he or she has earned less than 50 percent of the median income level for three consecutive years, is not a student and has savings of less than 100,000 Danish kroner (14,423.8 U.S. dollars). (Photo: Jacob Bøtter/ Flickr)

COPENHAGEN–The number of people living in poverty in Denmark has more than doubled over the past 13 years, a report showed on Tuesday.

A survey conducted by the thinktank Economic Council of the Labor Movement (AE in Danish) showed that over 44,000 people were considered to be living in poverty in Denmark in 2015, up significantly from 18,650 recorded in 2002.

Denmark’s official poverty line was repealed in 2015 by the government shortly after it was introduced two years earlier, and AE continues to make annual calculations based on this standard.

A person is considered poor if he or she has earned less than 50 percent of the median income level for three consecutive years, is not a student and has savings of less than 100,000 Danish kroner (14,423.8 U.S. dollars).

Chief analyst at AE Jonas Schytz Juul told local newspaper Information that the increase was mainly due to cut in social welfare payments and reduction of support for immigrants introduced in the early 2000s.

“There is a group of young people that do not start further education, and it is this group that is increasingly poor,” Juul was quoted by the paper as saying.