“Eurostat disseminates early results for severe material deprivation rates so that trends in poverty levels can be tracked more closely. 2014 data are available for over half the European Union (EU) Member States, and Iceland. The coverage and the timeliness is expected to increase in the coming years. Latvia and Hungary have provided final data for the early results, while Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Malta, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, the United Kingdom and Iceland have transmitted provisional data. Early EU-28 aggregates are not yet available for 2014, as not all Member States have transmitted final or provisional material deprivation variables.In 2014, of the countries that sent data to Eurostat, early severe material deprivation rates increased for Greece (+1.4 percentage points), Belgium and Spain (both +0.8 pp) and for Malta (+0.7 pp) The rates fell significantly in Bulgaria (-9.9 pp), Latvia (-4.8 pp), Poland (-1.5 pp), Hungary (- 2.9 pp), Estonia (-1.4 pp), Italy and United Kingdom (both -1.0 pp). No large variations were seen in the other countries for which data is available…Material deprivation rates gauge the proportion of people whose living conditions are severely affected by a lack of resources.”