Shocking living standard in Hungary – no money to buy clothes?

According to napi.hu, the population of the European Union spent almost 400 billion euros on clothing and footwear in 2016. However, Hungarians are not quite among the leaders…

Eurostat recently published the results of its newest survey about household spending on clothing and footwear. In 2016, the households of the European Union spent 395.4 billion euros on clothing and footwear, which is equivalent to 2.7% of the EU’s GDP or 800 euros per person.

As you might be able to guess, Hungary is not in the lead of spending, it is among the tailenders instead. Considering the spending/inhabitant rate, we only managed to come before Bulgarians, who spend 100 euros per year, whereas we spend 200 euros per year.

This also means that Hungary lags behind the region, where the average spending is around 300 euros.

It’s probably not surprising that Luxemburg is the lead, since people spend 8.5 times more compared to us. The leaders are mostly rich countries, except for the fashion lover Italy, where people spend 1100 euros on clothing and footwear.

Regarding the share of clothing & footwear in total household expenditure, the winners are Estonia, Portugal and Italy. Hungary is in the back of this list as well, way beyond the EU average. It’s interesting that even though Luxemburg spends fortunes on clothing, this doesn’t show on the diagram due to the high wages.

Since 2006, the share of clothing and footwear in total household expenditure decreased in the vast majority of the member states. However, Hungary and some other countries of the region form an exception: the rates showed an increasing tendency here.

Lastly, when it comes to the total spending, Hungary is somewhere in the middle with 2064.6 billion euros.

Source: https://www.napi.hu/