Hungary has become one of the countries with greater financial security in ten years, Bence Rétvári, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry of Human Capacities, said on M1 television on Sunday.
Data released by the EU's statistical office at the end of 2020 shows that 21 percent of the European Union's population (around 92.4 million people) were at risk of poverty in 2019. The Czech Republic had the lowest rate (12.5 percent), while Bulgaria had the highest, where one in three people were affected. Hungary was in the middle of the EU in this ranking and has overtaken countries such as Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland and Spain.
According to the European Union, more than 3 million people were still at risk of poverty during the Gyurcsány-Bajnai government, but since then 1.5 million people have managed to stabilize their livelihoods.
In 2010, when the second Orbán government took office, the proportion of people living in deep poverty was 23.4 percent. Now, it has fallen to 8.7 percent.
In 2014, the government froze the price of electricity and district heating. While ten years ago, paying housing costs was a problem for one in four people but now that rate has dropped to 10 percent. Bence Rétvári also said the gap has begun to close between the minimum wage and the subsistence threshold.
What's more, the risk of poverty and social exclusion in Hungary fell from 19.8 percent in 2018 to 18.9 percent in 2019. The Hungarian data is almost three percentage points more favorable than the EU average.
Photo credit: MTI