Hungary among the poorest countries in the European Union?
Two-thirds of Hungarians are considered poor on an EU level.
There are some major contradictions when it comes to salaries and the standard of living in Hungary. During the past year, prices in the country increased at an incredible rate, be it property, petrol, or grocery items. Restaurants and bars at Lake Balaton offer their meals for shockingly high prices that compete with the Adriatic level. Meanwhile, salaries and minimum wages are one of the lowest among the EU Member States.
Property prices have doubled in Hungary
Considering wages, most Eastern European countries have managed to catch up to the rest of the EU Member States over the past 15 years. There is one single exception: Hungary. Although the financial situation of Hungarians has improved, the increase does not exceed the European average.
It means that considering all EU countries between 2005 and 2017, Hungary did not take a step forward, 444.hu concluded from the research conducted by EUROSHIP. The project aims to provide an original and gender-sensitive assessment of the current gaps in social protection against poverty and social exclusion.
According to the paper,
a considerable portion of Hungarian society is regarded as poor on a European Union level.
To decide whether someone is poor or not, we need to take into consideration the notion of the “poverty line”. Those households are considered to be below the line where the income of the family is below 60% of the median household income level of the country. Those who live on less money than this amount are considered poor. Of course, it does matter whether you live below this line in Hungary, Romania, or Sweden.
If we consider all EU Member States together as one big country, we can set up the common poverty line at 60% of this cumulate median income. From here, it is quite easy to see the difference between the EU poverty line and that of the separate countries.
The British or Italian poverty thresholds, for instance, overlap with the EU median. Meanwhile, this number in Hungary only represents 40% of these countries’ household income levels. Looking at the rest of the EU members, only Romania and Bulgaria are behind Hungary.
Index.hu points out that
the Hungarian poverty line, which was 40% of the EU poverty threshold in 2005, stayed the same in 2017 as well.
The rest of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 managed to improve their overall financial situation over the years. During this time, Poland stood together with Hungary. However, by 2017, the country managed to increase its threshold to up to 70% of the EU median.
In certain countries, such as France or Finland, the poverty line is higher than the EU median. Only 5% of the population is considered poor.
As opposed to Hungary, where 75% of the total population lives below the poverty threshold.
Source: index.hu, 444.hu, EUROSHIP
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5 Comments
In my opinion, the biggest poverty in Hungary is the lack of young forces. Educated youth has been emigrating in mass since the current regime seized power eleven years ago. We are speaking of hundreds of thousands, some suggest half million already.
The regime is giving money to couples with children out of demagogical reasons, but those are children who will be moving to Austria and Germany as well, and anyway such growth in birth rate is not making the population raise, on the contrary.
Within a few decades from now, Hungary will have barely 8 million inhabitants, 70 or 80 % of which will be over 65, with small pensions paid in a devalued currency and most of them in poor health state.
Bravo, Orban, you are destroying your own country.
Sadly Mario you are right and I don’t see how anyone can say otherwise.
Mario – valid comments.
Wealth Distribution & Social Inequality – just (2) two others that could be put on the Long list – that have not improved in the time in office of the present Government of Hungary.
What are the incentives for the youth that have toiled and struggled for years to obtain there degrees and “other” recognized European educational qualifications – to remain in Hungary ???
If opportunities are not created – promoted and financially supported by Governments – that ENTRICE – the youth to remain in there country of birth, that CONFIRMS – sets out career paths and opportunities, that will remunerate – a fair and reasonable salary and life-style to them – if this is NOT the promoted and encouraged Marketing & Selling of a Government – to the youth of a country – then they will leave.
Can this trend be rescinded in Hungary ?
What a CHALLENGE for Government who ever are in POWER.
Time is running out rapidly – that Action – supported by creative 21st century Policies and Decisions – need implementing – to cease this DRAIN of youth from our Citizenship.
The Hungarian government is so bad it’s literally a drain on the whole economy. They steal over a trillion forints annually. THe ruling party, Fidesz, is a fascist party made up of mostly soviet communist politicians who stole apart everything after the Russians left, and now they rule with an absoulte parlaimenter majority and 2/3 of the seats, despite only getting 48% of the votes. They bought up all tv, all countrywide newpaper and all radio channels from state funds, and they even hire propagandists online. They spend over 200billion forints on propaganda annually. The minister of justice is a a criminal who gets free houses and millions in bonuses from corruption, an dwho legalised using pegasus, a cyberweapon against civil activists, journalists, lawyers, politicians and judges. The minister of “human resources” (because this shithole does not even have seperate ministries and ministers for health, education, housing and social welfare) is literally a communist spy madman who said that “Infectous illnesses can be prevented by following the ten commandments (of the bible)”, who made cancer his main agendas, but despite the declining population, cancer counts are even higher, and so are preventable illnesses and premature deaths, and the schools are assigned to party loyal directors. Universities were forcefully and dishonestly taken over by party members families trough foundations. The state completely ignores recommendations by teachers, and runs propaganda campaigns against intellectuals. The whole engineering and infrastructural sector is controlled by party servants, most notably Mészáros Lőrinc, who acts as the personal wallet for Orbán Viktor. The minister of internal affairs is a maffia member who participated in the car bombings in Budapest in the 1990s. The party runs an anti-immigrant rethoric while selling passports themselves, and not only welcoming, but even funding international criminals like Hernádi Zsolt and Michael Gruevsky. They try to accuse every opposition as communist, while once again, they are communists and they nationalise everything then pass everything into the hand of party members, and they took 4 billion forints worth of loans from the Chinese Communist Party, an antichristian dictatorship, on projects whcih they did not even start to this day!
So many lies, fabrications! No wonder you don’t dare to give your name. Shame on you!