A survey conducted by the National Statistics Service on living conditions and income earned in 2008 indicates that 20% of Greece's population are facing poverty.

In numbers it is translated to 832.975 households or 2.186.869 people whose income is not over the poverty line, specifically their annual income is not over 6.480 per person and 13.608 for households comprised of two adults and two dependant children.

Analysis released by NSS of poverty rates among different groups is the following: 23% of children under 17yo, 22% of adults over 65yo, while risk of poverty rate for the unemployed comes up to 37%.

Welfare benefits reduce risk of poverty by 3.3% while pensions reduce risk of poverty by 18.3%. Risk of poverty is higher among women compared to men (21% and 20% respectively while level of education is a significant factor to lower risk of poverty.

Obligatory education is the highest level of education reached by 71.2% of poverty group while 43.1% of middle-class has reached the same education level. Threatened by poverty is 42% of illiterate group. Risk of poverty of economic immigrants after economic developments is estimated at 31%.

Groups threatened by poverty are:

• Households with dependent children under 16 and one person working (52%)
• Households with dependent children without anybody working (44%)
• Unemployed men (39%)
• Households with one adult over 65yo (31%)
• Households without dependent children and no working members (29%)
• Single families with at least one dependent child (27%)
• Families with two adults and 2 dependent children (27%)
• Single female (27%)
• Youngsters 16 to 24 yo (24%)
• Poor group of people is also threatened by:
• family members with low education level (67%)
• Unemployed (64%)
• Family members living in scarcely populated regions(63%)
• Families with dependent children (52%)
• Families without dependent children (48%)
• Employed (36%)
• Families with dependent children and at least one person working (34%). News item: 34162