The number of Maltese people “constantly struggling to keep up with bills” rose by six per cent over the past 12 months, according to a new Eurobarometer survey released in Brussels yesterday.
According to the EU-wide survey, conducted in Malta last September by Misco, 31 per cent of the 500 Maltese respondents said they were struggling “all the time” to make ends meet by the end of every month. An identical survey in September 2009 gave the figure at 25 per cent.
Five per cent of respondents said they were falling behind in payments, an increase of one per cent over the previous year.
Although the majority of respondents were not in dire straits, they admitted they were not completely at ease about the state of their household’s income.
Just under one-fourth, 24 per cent, of respondents said they had no difficulty in making ends meet and 37 per cent reported they to struggle “from time to time”.
On the whole, the survey, which tested people’s perception of poverty, shows the majority of Maltese think poverty on the island is on the rise. In fact, 55 per cent, two per cent more when compared to 2009, that poverty in Malta is widespread though 42 per cent disagreed.
Asked how much they personally felt at risk of being over-indebted, 22 per cent said they considered themselves to be at risk.
According to the survey, the most unaffordable item in Malta is property as 82 per cent said it was very difficult nowadays to find decent housing at a reasonable price.
In the rest of the EU, 65 per cent agreed that decent housing at a good price was becoming a problem.
Controversially, the overwhelming majority of those interviewed (73 per cent) think that in order to tackle poverty the government should tax more the well-off. Twenty per cent disagreed.
On an EU wide level the survey showed that just over three quarters of those surveyed (76 per cent) feel poverty in their country is widespread, compared to 73 per cent in 2009.
The extent to which poverty is seen as widespread remains very different from country to country and ranges from 33 per cent in Sweden to 96 per cent in Romania.
However, significant increases in the extent to which poverty is believed to be widespread are noted in Spain (75 per cent; +9), Poland (79 per cent; +8), Denmark (38 per cent; +7), Romania (96 per cent; +6), Lithuania (85 per cent; +6) and the Czech Republic (65 per cent; +6).
Conversely, Luxembourg (45 per cent; -10) is the only country where a significantly smaller proportion of respondents than in 2009 find that poverty is widespread in their country.