Are number of Hungarians living in poverty plummets?

Eurostat data show that the ratio of Hungarians living in poverty has dropped over the past ten years, a human resources ministry’s official said, visiting a foster family in a village in north-eastern Hungary on Monday.

In recent years, it seems that the financial situation of Hungarians, in general, has been very poor compared to many other countries in the European Union. According to recent GKI statistics, Hungary’s minimum wage is the second-worst in the EU. Now, it seems that more than 2 million Hungarians, which is more than one-fifth of the country’s population, live under the poverty line, details HERE.

Whereas the ratio of those living beyond poverty line was 23.4 percent in 2010, this dropped to 8.7 percent last year, elevating Hungary to the top ten EU member states from bottom of the list, Attila Fülöp, the state secretary in charge of social affairs, said in Tarpa.

He said the favourable development was thanks to the government’s job-creation measures.

“Jobs are key to developing communities that help improve a secure way of life,” Fülöp told a press conference.

He said a recent report by “leftist” Hungarian economic research institute GKI aimed “to prove” that poverty in Hungary had increased in the past ten years.

“But, contradicting the Budapest institute’s report, the reality can be found here in Tarpa,” Fülöp said, adding that “authentic Eurostat data, a standard across Europe, prove that the number of those living in poverty has dropped.”

As we wrote last year, Eurostat’s most recent analysis said, the level of individual consumption per capita in Hungary was barely two-thirds of the EU average (69%) in 2019, which placed us in the bottom three again, details HERE.

Source: MTI