Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) 2020

The Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) in Ireland is a household survey covering a broad range of issues in relation to income and living conditions. It is the official source of data on household and individual income and provides a number of key national poverty indicators, such as the at risk of poverty rate, the consistent poverty rate and rates of enforced deprivation.  This report presents the results for 2020, using an income reference period of the 2019 calendar year.

Due to the break in time series (see Information Notice), this report is focused on SILC 2020 results alone.

The main results for 2020 are summarised below:

Poverty and Deprivation

• The at risk of poverty rate was 13.2% in 2020.
• Those most at risk of poverty in 2020 were individuals who were Unable to work due to long-standing health problems (33.4%) and Unemployed (33.2%). This compares with an at risk of poverty rate of 6.5% for those that described their principal economic status as Employed.
• Enforced deprivation was experienced by 14.3% of the population.
• The most commonly experienced item of deprivation in 2020 was the Inability to afford to replace any worn out furniture (16.2%), followed by being Unable to afford to have family or friends for a drink or meal once a month (10.5%) and going Without heating at some stage in the last year (9.1%).
• The consistent poverty rate was 4.7% in 2020.
• Individuals living in households where there was One adult and one or more children aged under 18 had the highest consistent poverty rate at 19.3%, compared with 0.4% for individuals living in households where there were Two or more adults, with at least one aged 65 or over, and no children.
• If rent and mortgage interest payments were deducted from disposable income, the at risk of poverty rate using the standard at risk of poverty threshold of €14,408 would have been 19.3%.
• The at risk of poverty rate for people Renting without housing supports was 16.6%, increasing to 31.5% after rent was deducted.
• The at risk of poverty rate for those living in accommodation Rented with other forms of social housing supports such as the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), Rent Supplement and the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), was 60.9% after rent was deducted, almost 2.5 times higher than before it was deducted (25.9%).

Income

• The median disposable household income in 2020 was €43,915, while the mean was €52,941.
• In 2020, households with Three or more persons at work had the highest nominal median household disposable income (€87,855), compared with €24,892 or households with No one at work.
• Households containing One adult aged 65 or over had the lowest nominal median household disposable income (€17,312), compared with €75,285 for households composed of Three or more adults and no children.