In February 2023, Statbel (the Belgian Statistical Office) published the EU-SILC 2022 data (based on the 2021 incomes). The EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) aim to collect timely and comparable cross-sectional and longitudinal data on income, poverty, social exclusion, and living conditions.
Based on the statistics that are shown in different graphics, this report gives a general overview of social trends as well as a focus on the populations at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Data show that the expected negative impact of the health crisis on the economy and on poverty and social exclusion had not materialized. The number of people at risk had dropped during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic which suggested that strong progress had been made on the Belgian target within the European Pillar of Social Rights framework to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 279.000 people by 2030. However, for the low-skilled and persons with limitations, this progress seems to be lost entirely in the second year of the COVID-19 crisis. These people belong to population groups that traditionally already have a high poverty risk (AROP). At the same time, strong progress continues to be made on the sub target on child poverty and social exclusion. An increase is observed in median household income, but mainly in the highest income deciles. However, data show that recent poverty rates remain below pre-COVID levels for most population groups.