Wykluczenie społeczne i sfera ubóstwa w krajach Unii Europejskiej

The paper presents the indicators, which measure the income poverty in the member countries of the European Union. From the year 2000 the European Union achieved the open coordination of policy against poverty and social exclusion. The analysis of changes in poverty level with the aid of described indicators helps to select better measures against poverty. In the 1999 the biggest scale of poverty was in Greece and Portugal (21%). In these countries over 60% of poor people stay in sphere of poverty at least for three consecutive years. The distribution of income shows the big inequality in these countries. The gap of poverty was also the biggest in these countries. The smallest domain of poverty occurred in the Scandinavian countries, Germany and Holland.