Poverty is recognized as a social problem in most European countries. However, figures showing the size of poverty are far from unquestioned. One reason for controversy is how the poverty line should be determined. The approach taken here is to start from the fundamental property of the welfare state, that it provides income for various categories of people who are not working. We concentrate on those of an age where one is supposed to work but does not work because of reasons such as disablement or unemployment. 'Poverty' defined in this manner can be said to indicate the inefficiency of the welfare state. 'The poor' are people with a disposable income lower than those for whom the welfare state takes responsibility. Using regression analyses and data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), we extract poverty lines for seven European countries, Australia, Canada and the USA. The height of the poverty line in relation to mean disposable income is found to be different in the various countries. The highest poverty lines are found for Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK. Australia, Canada, France and Switzerland are found to have middle-high poverty lines while the USA has a low poverty line.
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