The photograph is illustrative.

The figures on elderly poverty in Slovenia are seriously worrying, as as many as 54.3 percent of people over 65 who live alone are below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold, while the European Union average is 26.8 percent.

Croatia fares even worse, as in the same situation as many as 64.4 percent of elderly people living alone are affected. This is shown by the latest comparable Eurostat data, analyzed by the Slovenian portal svet24.si.

How much can older people really buy?

The amount of a pension or other income does not in itself reveal how well someone lives. Eurostat therefore includes differences in prices between countries in its calculation and observes how much food, energy, housing, and other things can be bought with disposable income. Simply put, it compares not only how much money older people receive, but how much that money is actually worth in their country.

When the annual results are converted into monthly figures, the purchasing power of a typical person over 65 amounts to about 2,554 comparable units in Austria, 1,913 in Germany, and 1,741 in the European Union. Slovenia stands at 1,482, Croatia at 1,162, and Serbia at only 816. These are not pension amounts in euros, but values adjusted to prices in each country.

In terms of the purchasing power of older people, Slovenia ranked 17th among the 30 observed countries, while Austria is third and Germany is also significantly ahead of Slovenia, ranking 7th. Croatia is noticeably below Slovenia and ranked 21st, while Serbia is in 29th place and thus near the very bottom of the list.

This means that lower prices in Croatia and Serbia are still not enough to offset the significantly lower incomes of older people.

Those who live alone have it hardest

The most serious problem is seen among older people who pay for housing, utilities, food, and all other expenses on their own. In Croatia, 64.4 percent of such people are below the national at-risk-of-poverty threshold, in Slovenia 54.3 percent, in Serbia 40.2 percent, in Germany 30 percent, and in Austria 25 percent. The European Union average is 26.8 percent, which shows how much Croatia and Slovenia stand out in a negative sense.

It is important to understand that the at-risk-of-poverty threshold is not the same amount in all countries. It is set at 60 percent of median income in each country, so a person who is poor by Croatian standards does not necessarily have the same standard of living as a poor person in Austria. This figure primarily shows how far older people lag behind the usual incomes in their own country.

In Slovenia, every fourth pensioner is below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold, while the EU average is 15 percent. At the same time, 2.9 percent of Slovenian older people are severely materially deprived, less than the European average of 4.9 percent. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that many live in their own fully paid-off properties, so despite low incomes, they do not have to allocate a large part of their money to rent.

The Croatian picture is even more unpleasant

svet24.si concludes that the Slovenian problem is not only the weaker purchasing power of older people compared with the European average, but also the large gap between those who can still live decently and the people at the bottom of the income scale. Croatian data reveal an even more difficult picture, because older people have lower purchasing power than in Slovenia, and almost two thirds of those who live alone are below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. Behind the average figures, there is thus a large number of people for whom one unplanned bill can seriously threaten the entire monthly budget.