Eurostat: Hungarians are the second poorest in the European Union

Hungary became the second most impoverished country in 2017; only Bulgarians live worse than us, turns out of the statistics of Eurostat.

Our actual individual consumption (AIC) compares EU member states regarding purchasing power- parity (PPP) measures and the latest GDP and population figures, Index states. According to this,

the welfare of Hungarian households only reaches 62% of the EU average.

Although the government tried to cover poverty by falsifying statistics, they are still depressing. This figure was the same in 2016, although in 2015 we reached 63%. Hungary was the fourth poorest country at that time, only Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria had worse results. Our southern neighbours have now reached the Hungarian consumption level, while Romania jumped to 68% from 58% in three years. Romania produced the most significant improvement in the whole EU, although Lithuania (from 83 to 88%) and the Czech Republic (from 78% to 82%) also increased their consumption very well.

Ten member states have higher PPP than the EU average, namely Luxembourg, Germany and Austria.

However, the latter relatively decreased its consumption, from 120% to 117%, although neither Luxembourgian nor Swedish people live as well as they did in 2015: Luxemburg reached 132% instead of 140%, while the latter 109% instead of 113%.

Eurostat measures welfare with GDP per capita as well; Hungary is fifth from the bottom, GDP per capita is 68% of the average of the European Union. We are ahead of Latvia (67%), Romania (63%), Croatia (62%) and Bulgaria (49%) with this. However, Eurostat considers AIC more sufficient to compare the member states. Although AIC does not measure income, consumption, hence if someone buys something on credit instead of their income, it will be measured as well.

Source: index.hu