Regularly, I receive a free, as unbiased as can be, Revista de Imprensa, a catchall for the most important regional news. The latest issue came with an article with the following title, which caught my eye:

The Azores reduce the risk of poverty or social exclusion, but lead at the national level.

What an amazing piece of news, one would think, that the Azores has not only reduced the risk of poverty and social exclusion but lead that reduction at the national level. Obviously, I didn’t look at the “but” neither did the Right. Local news and the Regional Government of the Azores, as well as the leading party — the Social Democratic Party, in coalition with the Christian Democrats and the Monarchic Party, supported by the extreme right-wing party Chega — have all been celebrating.

According to INE (National Statistics Institute), the risk of poverty or social exclusion in the Azores fell in 2025, from 28.4% in 2024 to 21.6% in 2025. Despite this improvement, the level of poverty and social exclusion in the archipelago is the highest in Portugal. More than two in every ten people in the Azores is destitute and this is a fact despite government support, otherwise we would witness gross signs of visible hunger. There is no need for celebration, methinks.

In addition, speaking to Açoriano Oriental, sociologist Fernando Diogo, professor at the University of the Azores (UAc) and researcher at CICS.NOVA, stresses that this indicator should be interpreted with caution, given its complexity. “When we talk about the risk rate of poverty or social exclusion, we are talking about an indicator composed of three distinct variables: the poverty risk rate, very low per capita labour intensity, and severe material and social deprivation,” he explains. Fernando Diogo states, “This indicator broadens the analysis to the social dimension, unlike the poverty risk rate, which is essentially monetary and measures the disposable income of households. It helps us understand how effectively people are integrated into society, rather than just whether their incomes fall below a specific level.” The statistical decline is due in part to the change in the measuring method, not to the change in people’s economic and material conditions.

Another reason for glee among the government, in Diário Insular, is the data contained in the report Budgetary Evolution of the Autonomous Regions in 2024 by the Public Finance Council, which shows that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Azores grew by 2.3% in real terms, exceeding the growth of the national economy by 0.2 percentage points, which stood at 2.1%. Joaquim Machado, leader of the Social Democrats in the Regional Parliament, pointed out that “this demonstrates the vitality of the regional economy, which is based, above all, on the strong contribution of strategic sectors for our development, such as Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (+7.1%), Industry and Energy (+6.4%), Tourism and Catering (+4.1%).” The funny thing is that the sectors that he lauds are exactly the ones with the greatest economic asymmetries between the owners of the means of production and the workers.

When we talk about Gross Domestic Product, we refer to the size of the economy, how much is produced and how much wealth is created. It says nothing about the distribution of the said wealth. The economy of the Azores is based on low wages, work paid under-the-table, precarious labour, and minimum wage. There is little difference between the salary of someone on minimum wage and that of another with a university degree working as a “technician”. Salaries at the bottom no longer distinguish between skilled or unskilled labour. At the same time, the cost of living is unsustainable for large swaths of the population. People in the archipelago of the Azores are rationing food or not buying indispensable medication to have a roof over their heads. It is that desperate.   

The Gross Domestic Product is the wealth that is kept by the owners of the means of production: the owners of the fishing vessels, the factories, the electricity network, the restaurants, and hotels, and so on. Their workers receive the minimum possible that the law permits, or that despair accepts.

Let’s not celebrate yet because the state of the economy for the ones at the bottom is gross.

Avelina da Silveira is a poet, novelist, and cultural and political activist. She writes in both Portuguese and English. She is from the Azores, where she currently resides, but she lived in Canada for many years.