Does Belarus have several times less poverty than Latvia, Lithuania and Poland? The figures measure different things

Does Belarus have several times less poverty than Latvia, Lithuania and Poland? The figures measure different things

Publication date: 22 October 2026

Claim

A presenter on the First National Channel of Belarusian Radio said that fewer than 3.5% of people in Belarus have low incomes, compared with allegedly 25.6% in Latvia, 22.2% in Lithuania and 16% in Poland. The figures were presented as direct proof that poverty in the neighbouring countries is several times higher.

Verdict

Misleading. The Belarusian figure is the share of people whose resources fall below the national subsistence minimum. The figures used for the EU countries refer to the at-risk-of-poverty-or-social-exclusion indicator, AROPE. It combines relative poverty, severe material and social deprivation, and very low household work intensity. These indicators answer different questions, so they cannot be ranked as if they measured the same form of poverty.

In brief

Belstat does publish a low-income rate based on the national minimum subsistence budget. It was 3.2% in the second quarter of 2026. Eurostat calculates AROPE differently: a person is included if they meet at least one of three criteria. One criterion depends on the national median income rather than a fixed minimum-consumption threshold. Much of the apparent gap between 3.2-3.5% and European values around 16-26% is therefore created by switching methodologies.

Why it matters

Replacing one indicator with another turns statistics into a political ranking that the data do not support. Relative poverty describes a person's position compared with incomes inside their country. An absolute or minimum threshold asks whether resources cover a defined set of essential needs. AROPE also captures material deprivation and weak household employment. A higher value on one of these measures cannot automatically be translated into a lower overall standard of living.

Verification method

We located the original statement and the Belarusian Investigative Center's review. We then checked the Belarusian indicator in Belstat materials, the structure of AROPE in Eurostat methodology, and national measures closer to a minimum-consumption threshold in official Polish and Lithuanian statistics. We checked Belarus's Human Development Index rank against the United Nations Development Programme table.

Evidence

Belstat defines the low-income population as people whose average per-capita disposable resources are below the minimum subsistence budget. Its official infographic for the second quarter of 2026 reports 3.2%. This is a national measure tied to the cost of a minimum set of food, non-food goods, services and compulsory payments.

Eurostat defines the risk of poverty or social exclusion as the union of three groups. They are people with equivalised disposable income below 60% of the national median, people experiencing severe material and social deprivation, and people under 65 living in households with very low work intensity. Meeting any one criterion is enough. AROPE is therefore broader than the share of people below a subsistence minimum.

The relative threshold also moves with incomes in each country. Eurostat explicitly explains that the measure describes low income compared with other residents of the same country and does not, by itself, directly measure wealth or absolute poverty.

Official Polish statistics show how strongly the result depends on the definition. In 2025, the estimated extreme-poverty risk based on a subsistence minimum was 5.3%, while the relative-poverty risk was 13.5%. Both figures concern the same country and period, but they differ by more than a factor of two because the thresholds are different.

Lithuania's State Data Agency also separates absolute poverty from the risk of poverty. Its absolute threshold is based on minimum consumption needs, while the at-risk-of-poverty threshold is linked to median income. This confirms that EU AROPE values cannot be compared with the Belarusian minimum as if they were the same indicator.

The statement that Belarus ranks 65th in the Human Development Index is correct for UNDP's table using 2023 data. However, the Human Development Index combines life expectancy, education and income. It does not make incompatible national poverty indicators comparable.

What remains unknown

The checked public sources do not provide one fully comparable current absolute-poverty measure for Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, calculated by one institution with one basket and for one period. National minimums, household scales, prices and accounting rules differ. A reliable four-country ranking of absolute poverty cannot therefore be built from the reviewed figures. This also does not mean that AROPE is unreal or unimportant: it measures other forms of vulnerability.

Conclusion

The claimed gap does not prove that poverty in Belarus is several times lower than in neighbouring countries. The comparison mixes a national subsistence-minimum measure with the broader European risk-of-poverty-or-social-exclusion indicator. The valid conclusion is methodological: all four countries face forms of material vulnerability, but these percentages cannot be ranked directly.

Sources

• Belarusian Investigative Center, original statement and methodology review: https://investigatebel.org/en/fakenews/belarus-neighbors-poverty-comparison-kazakov
• Belstat, living standards in the second quarter of 2026: https://belstat.gov.by/upload-belstat/upload-belstat-pdf/oficial_statistika/2026/infografics-living_standarts-26_2-en.pdf
• Eurostat, poverty and social exclusion methodology: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained?title=Living_conditions_in_Europe_-_poverty_and_social_exclusion
• Statistics Poland, economic poverty rates in 2025: https://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/living-conditions/social-assistance/rates-of-economic-poverty-risk-in-poland-in-2025,4,13.html
• State Data Agency of Lithuania, definition of absolute poverty: https://osp.stat.gov.lt/en/lietuvos-gyventoju-pajamos-ir-gyvenimo-salygos-2023/absoliutus-skurdas/absoliutaus-skurdo-lygis
• UNDP, Human Development Index table using 2023 data: https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2025_HDR/HDR25_Statistical_Annex_HDI_Table.pdf

Corrections

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