On Thursday, December 28, the National Insurance Institute of Israel published its Report on Poverty and Inequality of Income for 2022. This is the official poverty report of the State of Israel, based on the administrative data of all Israeli citizens.
Two significant data points stand out in the report - a substantial increase in the number of citizens entering the poverty cycle in Israel and a dramatic worsening of the situation of families already in the cycle.
According to the data, in 2022, there were 1.98 million individuals living below the poverty line in Israel, including 873,300 children and 152,500 senior citizens. The data indicates a 300,000 year-on-year increase over the 2021 report, which had the number of people living below the poverty line at 1.95 million.
In addition, in 2022, following the previous year’s trend, poverty was deeper and more severe across almost all population groups. For example, in 2022, the poverty rate among the ultra-Orthodox stood at 35.3%, compared to 34.4% in 2021. The poverty rate for families with five or more children was 51.6%; for families with four children - 33.3%; and for families with three children, in 2022, it stood at 20.8%.
Other troubling data shows that in 2022, the poverty rate among senior citizens stood at 18.3%, and among children, it was 28.2%, representing a significant increase from the 2021 poverty report.
The National Insurance Institute added new metrics to its report this year, including data on the coverage of expenses, food insecurity, and the percentage of those foregoing meals for economic reasons. In 2022, the percentage of individuals experiencing food insecurity and whose household incomes failed to cover all their expenses increased. Moreover, the percentage of those foregoing meals at least once every two days and leisure activities also rose.
In the second and third quarters of 2023, 30.9% of households experienced nutritional insecurity due to economic reasons: 12.6% had very low nutritional security, and 18.3% had low nutritional security. The percentage of households unable, due to economic reasons, to afford non-essential food was 31.4%.
The report compares poverty in Israel with other developed countries. This year, once again, poverty in Israel is ranked among the highest among developed countries. In terms of individuals and children, Israel is ranked second highest after Costa Rica, and in terms of senior citizens, it is also ranked high after countries like Japan, Australia, and the United States.
Eli Cohen, CEO of Pitchon-Lev, one of the largest aid organizations in Israel, expressed concern, stating that “we are in the midst of a significant wave of poverty that we in the organization feel every day in the field and in each of the organization’s activities to break the cycle of poverty. We see it in an increase of more than 23% in assistance given to regular aid recipients receiving food baskets from the organization every week. Even before the battle is over, we see thousands of new families getting caught in the cycle of poverty and hardship in their current situation.”
Cohen referred to the report summarizing the data from the past year and expressed concern about next year’s results. “The Report published now presents the poverty data for 2022, but the sadness is that we also see the direct trend of what is happening during this period. In both cases, it is the government’s negligence that leads people into the cycle of poverty, allows them to fall, and only then attempts to deal with them. Last week, in a discussion in the Knesset Military Reserves Committee, Lior Mashiach spoke about how he went to fight without thinking twice, and in the meantime, his business crashed. Lior is the same story as those appearing in the 2022 report. He worries that he himself will be one of the statistics in the next year’s report.”