This article seeks to identify the determinants of poverty in Bulgaria and to profile groups at risk of adverse labour-market outcomes. Kolev?s methodology is based on a detailed consideration of income and non-income dimensions of poverty and perceptions of well-being at work. He examines the incidence of poverty in relation to personal, labour-market and household characteristics over the period 1995–2001. Though important to an individual?s poverty status, labour-market circumstances tend merely to mitigate or worsen the dominant effect of family circumstances. Kolev?s findings also suggest that non-income dimensions of poverty – chiefly poor working conditions – pose an important policy challenge.