One-third of Maltese see risk of falling behind on bills

In total the number of Maltese who see a high or some risk of falling behind on water, electricity and gas in the next 12 months has increased from 29% to 35%. The number of those who see no risk of falling behind has fallen from 67% to 59%.

The Maltese are among the most likely in Europe to see a risk of falling behind on paying utility bills surpassing the European average of 20% by 15 percentage points. 

The Maltese are only surpassed by the Bulgarians, Hungarians, Romanians and Greeks in their apprehension on utility bills.

The survey also reveals that only a quarter of the Maltese (compared to 43% of Europeans) are keeping up with bills without any difficulty. 

As in 2009, low wages and salaries are more of an issue in Eastern and Southern European countries: in Hungary (76%), Malta (68%), Romania (67%), Greece, Cyprus.

But Malta was one of seven countries where at least half of respondents are very confident that they will keep their jobs in the coming months. With the exception of Malta, these are all Northern or Western European countries.

And alongside Luxembourg Malta was one of  two countries where a majority believe that that nobody in their area lives in poverty.  36% of the Maltese believe that nobody in there area is poor.  Over the past year the number of Maltese who believe that nobody is poor in their area has increased by 8%.

82% of the Maltese also believe that it is difficult to find decent housing at a reasonable price.  This sentiment was more widespread in Malta than any European country except Cyprus (91%), the Czech Republic (88%) and Luxembourg (86%).

The number of people who feel left out of society has also increased by 8 percentage points in the past year to 14%. This is slightly lower than an EU average of 16% but more than double the number of socially excluded persons in Denmark and Sweden which register the lowest number of people feeling left out of society.

Interestingly 43% of the Maltese are among the most likely to blame poverty on insufficient economic growth compared to just 31% of Europeans who think likewise. 

The Maltese are less likely to blame international factors.  While 37% of Europeans blame poverty on external factors like globalization and the global financial system, only 30% of the Maltese think so.

Maltese most likely to give money to charity

The survey also shows that the Maltese are the most likely to help the poor by giving them charity. While 71% of Maltese respondents said they helped the poor by donating money to charity, only 36% of Europeans did likewise.

The highest percentage of Europeans (55%) helped the poor by giving them clothes.  In contrast only 38% of the Maltese helped the poor in this way.

Donating money to charities is  most widespread in Malta (71%), Ireland (70%), Sweden (69%) and Denmark (68%), whereas this is hardly the case in Bulgaria (9%) and Greece (10%).

But the Maltese are among the least likely to give money directly to the poor (25%) or to give them food (10%).  The number of Maltese who help the poor through voluntary work is just above the European average of 10%.

Only 8% of the Maltese never help the poor compared to 32% of Czechs.