Average household gross income grew by more than €1,050 in 2019 from the year before while the increase in average household disposable income was of €675. Data published by the National Statistics Office shows that household gross income reached an average of €34,627 in 2019 whereas the household disposable income average stood at €27,830.
More than 75 percent of the income of households was attributed to employment income with social benefits such as old-age pensions or children’s allowance contributing to a further 18 percent. Other household income included interests, dividends, and property rentals.
The 2019 European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey published by the NSO finds that there were 82,758 people living below the poverty line in Malta, earning less than €9,212 annually. This translates to a share of 17.1 percent of the population, up from 16.8 in 2018.
The rate of people at risk of poverty or exclusion also rose year-on-year, reaching 20.1 percent in 2019 from 19.0 percent the year before.
The rate of people in severe material poverty living in households climbed from 3.0 percent to 3.6 percent over the same period. The main variables in this calculation are the ability of households to take a week’s holiday away from home within a year and the ability to cope with unexpected financial expenses.
Single parents with one or more children were the most exposed, with nearly 43 percent in that group of households living on disposable income below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. Nevertheless, that share was a decrease from the 48.6 percent observed the year before.
Households with two adults and three or more children recorded the second-highest rate of poverty risk, and the share rising from 27.3 percent in 2018 to 33.1 percent the year after.
The distribution of persons under the at-risk-of-poverty threshold was uneven across the geographical regions, but the Northern Harbour district had the largest share with 20.8 percent of the population. On the other hand, the Western district registered the lowest at-risk-of-poverty rate, corresponding to 13.7 percent.
