In 2013, 14.6% of the total population were poor in terms of their relative income, 23.9% were seriously deprived and 9.2% lived in low work intensity households, the study said. In 2013, people earned 1.3 million forints per capita, before tax, 4.3% on top of the previous year.

Household consumption stayed more or less at 2012 levels, with utility bills and household costs accounting for a quarter of household spending.

Disposable income came to 40%. Socialist MP Lajos Korózs insisted that poverty had dramatically increased in Hungary, “no matter how the Orbán government lies”.

Citing the KSH study, he said that there was a sixteen-fold difference between the incomes of the richest and the poorest wage-earners, and the income of the 2 million people with the lowest wages had continuously dropped over the past four years.

The figures also revealed that almost half of children under the age of seven live in poverty. Since 2010, the budget for social services, education and health care had been reduced by 300 billion forints (EUR 980m) each.

Under its current cycle, the government plans to slash spending on social services by another 600 billion forints, a measure he said would lead to the starvation of thousands.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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