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The impoverishment of pensioners in Hungary is unstoppable, according to the CSO publication examining household living standards, which shows that the number of people living in relative income poverty has increased again.
Statistics define the relatively poor in income as those whose income does not reach 60 percent of the equivalent median income, that is, the poverty line. In 2019, this value was 105,259 HUF, 13% more than the 93,312 HUF the previous year. Among retirees, more and more people met this definition, as after the 10.9 percent recorded in 2018, 14.3 percent of the oldest had low income in 2019, writes Privátbankár.hu, referring to the report from the statistical office.
In terms of figures, in 2019, 293,722 pensioners lived with less than the poverty line (HUF 105,259) per month, while in 2018, another 221,488 people got into this difficult situation. This means impoverishing 72,000 older people in one year.
In the last ten years, since 2010, the situation has deteriorated dramatically: At that time, the share of low-income people among retirees was still only 4.6%, which has now risen to 14.3%. Ten years ago, only 113,000 people belonged to the group of the impoverished.
According to the portal, although the number of pensioners living in income poverty is 293,000 according to data from the OSC, strictly in terms of the amount of benefits, the number of those affected may be several times higher. According to data from the Hungarian State Treasury, there are around 580 thousand people who receive less than the poverty line, up to HUF 100 thousand per month, from the state as a pension.
The government has now spoken out separately on the report, but is signaling that by increasing pensions in line with inflation, they will maintain their purchasing power and regularly provide additional subsidies to those affected.
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