BENEFIT ADEQUACY, COVERAGE AND POVERTY-REDUCTION EFFECTIVENESS Figure 5 The number of families receiving GMI and/or means tested family allowances 400000 350000 300000 250000 200000 150000 100000 50000 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 GMI Means-tested family allowance Source: Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, Monthly Statistics, Accessed: September 2020. Authors' own graph. 2018 2019 2020 Poverty reduction effectiveness is measured as the per centage of persons living in households below the monetary poverty threshold based on their market income and pensions who nonetheless avoid poverty because they also receive social benefits. As shown in Table 1, although at the national level the poverty rate only slightly increased between 2017 and 2019, differences between regions have widened. The Northeast Region stands out with the highest poverty rate at 41.1% and the lowest relative poverty reduction, with only 5.3% of welfare recipients managing to avoid poverty. If we exclude the capital city of Bucharest, taken as a region on its own, the best performing region remains the Northwest. Table 1 Poverty rates and relative poverty reduction by development regions(NUTS-2) in Romania At-risk-of poverty rates (relative monetary poverty) 2017 Romania 23.6 Nord-Vest 19.0 Centru 17.3 Nord-Est 33.4 Sud-Est 29.6 Sud – Muntenia 24.9 Bucuresti – Ilfov 6.1 Sud-Vest Oltenia 33.4 Vest 21.4 Source: Eurostat, 2020. Authors' own calculations of poverty reduction. 2018 23.5 17.5 19.4 35.6 31.2 25.7 4.1 34.3 14.9 2019 23.8 14.7 21.2 41.1 31.1 26.0 2.9 31.6 14.7 2017 16.6 24.0 25.8 16.1 11.1 19.9 25.6 10.0 7.8 Relative poverty reduction 2018 16.1 21.9 16.4 17.0 11.4 16.3 51.8 7.3 11.8 2019 15.3 25.8 20.3 5.3 17.9 18.0 52.5 9.7 13.0 Concerning child poverty, not only poverty rates, but also poverty gaps are higher than the EU average, as Figure 6 and Figure 7 indicate. Furthermore, only one-fifth of children living in low-income households could avoid poverty because their families receive social transfers. In the EU, relative poverty reduction for children is 40% on average( see Figure 8). 7