An average Slovakian is twice as rich as an average Hungarian

According to hvg.hu, Hungarians’ fortune is way smaller than other nations’ of the region. The most determining factor besides age is whether or not someone has an own apartment.

It turned out from the European Central Bank’s survey that the gap between rich and poor Europeans is getting bigger and bigger. Hungarians are among the nations in the worst conditions.

The survey analysed the financial status of 20 countries – besides the 18 states of the Eurozone, Hungary and Poland also made it into the circle. Our situation is the second worst, we only came before the Latvians. They studied the median net wealth – in other words, the person who would stand in the middle (the number of people richer and poorer than him/her is the same) if people were lined up based on their fortune. By this, the Hungarian median is 26,200 euro.

However, this doesn’t mean that most Hungarians could get this money out of their pockets if they needed it, because, in most cases, the number was increased by the value of apartments, homes. While this indicator is 26.2 thousand euro in our case, it is 57.1 thousand in Poland, 50.3 thousand in Slovakia and 85.9 thousand in Austria.

The latest survey, conducted in 2010, generated quite a scandal in Germany, because it turned out that the Greeks had a greater fortune than Germans, even though they felt like it was their task to save the Greek economy. Since then, the Greek fortune has decreased a lot – the median fell back to 65 thousand from 105 thousand – but they still come before Germans with 5 thousand euros. Europe’s richest nation is still the Belgian, the indicator is 217 thousand in their case.

The European average fortune has decreased by 10% since 2010. This doesn’t signify a serious impoverishment, the main reason behind the decrease is the fall in estate prices. Although, the disproportion of the distribution is a bigger problem. The median rate of the 20 countries is 104 thousand euros, which is four times bigger than the Hungarian rate. Also, they measured 496 thousand in case of the richest 10%, and a negative rate in case of the poorest 5%.

One thing is for sure: the greatness of a European’s fortune is mostly determined by whether or not he/she has an own apartment. The median rate is 226 thousand euros among apartment owners, it is 144 thousand among those who have a real estate loan, while it is 8900 euro in case of renters.

Age also counts: people between 65 and 74 have the greatest fortune and they are followed by the 55-64 age group. The poorest are between the ages of 16 and 34.

Copy editor: bm

Source: http://hvg.hu/