The aim of the study was a trial to identify working population threatened by poverty in 28 European Union countries. A trial to define a notion and afterwards a level and structure of poor people was made in the paper. It was noticed that size and reach of poverty mostly depend on intensity of performed work and less on responders’’ age. It was indicated in the paper that the most threatened by poverty are the working for a maximum 20% of the full annual potential working time as well as people from two opposite poles of age: young people at age of 18-24 and people over 65. The paper underlines a relativity of poverty threat, which is dependent on place as well as socio-economic development of the given country.