A survey of poverty in Romania

In Romania, over a quarter of the population faces poverty and social exclusion.

Roxana Vasile, 19.08.2026, 14:00

More than a quarter of Romanians are at risk of poverty and social exclusion, making them, along with Bulgarians and Greeks, the most exposed in the European Union. Recently, the government in Bucharest, through the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration, published a detailed analysis of each administrative-territorial unit – one of the most complete radiographs ever carried out at the local level.

According to the document, the highest poverty rates are found in Moldova, southern Muntenia, Oltenia and central Transylvania, where the lack of infrastructure, reduced mobility and low levels of education contribute to deepening social vulnerability. In these areas, people simultaneously face bad roads that isolate them, schools and hospitals that are difficult to access, and few and poorly paid jobs. Each factor amplifies the other, creating a spiral from which it is difficult to escape without support.

Then, the contrast between rural areas and large urban centers is striking. In other words, if a Romanian is born or lives near a large city, his chances of a decent life are incomparably greater than if he lives in an isolated village in, for example, the northeast of the country. Here is sociologist Vladimir Ionas.

Vladimir Ionaş: “There are countries like Romania where investments and all public policies over the last 35 years have had as their main objective the population in large urban areas. Rural and small urban areas have been forgotten. With the deindustrialization after 1990, these small urban centers have only gone towards poverty. The migration of the population to other European Union countries has meant that in these areas, mainly elderly people and children remain. Hence the very high percentages of children in Romania who live at risk of poverty, and the public policies of governments over the last 30 years to improve their lives have tended to zero. If we look, unfortunately, in Romania, the serious discussions about how we can bring real support from the state for children, to encourage birth rates, to solve the demographic problem, to help people at risk of poverty, these were not ones that brought results.”

Although over a quarter of the population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion, Romania has, on paper, relatively low unemployment. Here is how Vladimir Ionaş explains this paradox

Vladimir Ionaş: “When we look at the official data and see that extremely low unemployment rate, we must take into account the fact that it includes people who are, in fact, registered in the official statistics as receiving unemployment or being in that period immediately after being granted unemployment, whereas we have in rural and small urban areas a huge number of people who, in fact, are unemployed, but are self-sufficient. Hence, for example, the very large number of microfarms, small farmers that Romania has, unlike all other European countries. It’s a cultural issue from before 1990, which is still very well rooted in rural Romania.”

In addition to general poverty, the government report also analyzes a phenomenon less discussed in the public space: energy poverty, that is, the proportion of the population that cannot ensure a minimum energy consumption, especially during winter. The analysis highlights a high degree of energy poverty especially in the rural area of ​​the Carpathian arc. There, tens of thousands of Romanians spend their winters in poorly heated homes, paying a large part of their income on wood or other energy sources or simply enduring the cold.

The main national social assistance program for individuals and families in financial difficulty is the Minimum Inclusion Income. Many families in Romania supplement their monthly income with this already modest social assistance, but where poverty is very high, they end up depending exclusively on state support to survive from one month to the next. The existence of some localities without any beneficiaries of this Minimum Inclusion Income is not a sign that things are going well, but, in some cases, that people who would be entitled to the aid do not receive it because they do not know that it exists, they have no way to turn to the competent institutions, and the local authorities do not guide them.

Moreover, public policies in Romania in support of people vulnerable to poverty, regardless of their age, have often been reduced precisely during difficult times of austerity, to the point of being canceled in the name of savings to the country’s budget. Sociologist Vladimir Ionaș exemplifies

Vladimir Ionaş: “Romania has never known or wanted – the political class, the people who had the decision-making power – to somehow link school attendance to the granting of the allowance, to any help that the state offers, precisely to encourage children to be at school every day. The help that it offered through a hot meal, for many citizens in rural areas and small towns had a very big impact, but here too, very often the state considered it a place where it could go when it had an economic, financial problem. I think that the discussions, and I have seen that the European Commission also places a lot of emphasis on these two chapters, should be oriented in the coming period precisely on everything related to the support that states can offer for children, because, on the one hand, we are aware of the fact that one of the biggest problems at the European level is the demographic problem, especially the birth rate. So, we must come up with public policies that encourage this chapter and help children. And two: people with disabilities, people with disabilities, because there is a big problem here too!”

In a word, the picture is quite bleak in Romania: depopulation and accelerated aging; high geographical mobility and concentration around large urban centers or the thickening of the ranks of the diaspora; large disparities in employment and social vulnerability. Left behind, children, the elderly, people in power but with poor school preparation or people with disabilities enter a vicious circle of poverty from which it is increasingly difficult to escape without well-thought-out social policies.

(bill)