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Hundreds of thousands of older Hungarians are being forced to choose between food, medicine, and heat as inadequate pensions fail to keep pace with rising costs, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.
Hungary has been facing difficulties concerning the increase in poverty among older people, which has coincided with rising inflation since 2018. This inflation skyrocketed in 2022 and 2023, when food price increases in Hungary surpassed those in other European Union countries. Older individuals with low pensions were those most affected, with many unable to maintain adequate diets due to the surging prices of staples, such as sugar, oil, flour, dairy, meat, and fruit.
As a form of recovery, the government of Hungary implemented in 2022 Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. This reform responds directly to the 2022 recommendation of the Council of the European Union, which urges Hungary to maintain prudent fiscal policies beyond 2023 and to address income inequalities by improving the adequacy and sustainability of its pension system, which includes a reform roadmap to improve the medium- and long-term sustainability of the Hungarian pension system while increasing lower-income pensioners’ entitlements. Another attempt of the Hungarian government was to manage gas prices and impose partial price controls on key food items in 2023 and 2025. However, vendors increased prices of other uncapped goods to make up their losses, limiting the effectiveness of price capping, said HRW.
As a result, the elderly people of Hungary are facing extreme difficulties, as shown by Eurostat data, describing a rapidly rising risk of poverty for older people in Hungary. The at-risk-of-poverty rate for people 65 and over increased from 6.3 percent in 2018 to 16.1 percent in 2023, which highlights longstanding structural problems with the Hungarian pension and social security system.
Hungary’s current pension system is based on a compulsory social insurance scheme financed primarily through contributions from current workers, with additional funding from general revenue. Old-age pensions are available at 65 or after sufficient contributions (20 years, 15 for the lowest tier), with a rarely granted minimum pension of 28,500 HUF (€72); women may retire after 40 years of eligibility, including certain child-rearing periods.
HRW conducted interviews with 45 individuals aged 65 to 91 who receive age-based contributory pensions in Budapest and two rural communities. They also consulted social policy experts and pensioner associations, analyzing official data. The interviews illustrate the realities of older people surviving on extremely low pensions. Many reported reducing food intake, and skipping medication to cope with rising living costs and sometimes being forced to choose between food and heat. The data also indicated that the most affected, were women and those with interrupted careers due to unpaid care responsibilities, as well as those in informal jobs.
As a European Union member state, Hungary is bound by the union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, which in article 34 includes obligations to protect entitlements to social security and social services, and to respect the right to social assistance to combat social exclusion and poverty, and by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights to ensure social security, an adequate standard of living, and the highest attainable standard of health.
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Hungary has been facing difficulties concerning the increase in poverty among older people, which has coincided with rising inflation since 2018. This inflation skyrocketed in 2022 and 2023, when food price increases in Hungary surpassed those in other European Union countries. Older individuals with low pensions were those most affected, with many unable to maintain adequate diets due to the surging prices of staples, such as sugar, oil, flour, dairy, meat, and fruit.
As a form of recovery, the government of Hungary implemented in 2022 Hungary’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. This reform responds directly to the 2022 recommendation of the Council of the European Union, which urges Hungary to maintain prudent fiscal policies beyond 2023 and to address income inequalities by improving the adequacy and sustainability of its pension system, which includes a reform roadmap to improve the medium- and long-term sustainability of the Hungarian pension system while increasing lower-income pensioners’ entitlements. Another attempt of the Hungarian government was to manage gas prices and impose partial price controls on key food items in 2023 and 2025. However, vendors increased prices of other uncapped goods to make up their losses, limiting the effectiveness of price capping, said HRW.
As a result, the elderly people of Hungary are facing extreme difficulties, as shown by Eurostat data, describing a rapidly rising risk of poverty for older people in Hungary. The at-risk-of-poverty rate for people 65 and over increased from 6.3 percent in 2018 to 16.1 percent in 2023, which highlights longstanding structural problems with the Hungarian pension and social security system.
Hungary’s current pension system is based on a compulsory social insurance scheme financed primarily through contributions from current workers, with additional funding from general revenue. Old-age pensions are available at 65 or after sufficient contributions (20 years, 15 for the lowest tier), with a rarely granted minimum pension of 28,500 HUF (€72); women may retire after 40 years of eligibility, including certain child-rearing periods.
HRW conducted interviews with 45 individuals aged 65 to 91 who receive age-based contributory pensions in Budapest and two rural communities. They also consulted social policy experts and pensioner associations, analyzing official data. The interviews illustrate the realities of older people surviving on extremely low pensions. Many reported reducing food intake, and skipping medication to cope with rising living costs and sometimes being forced to choose between food and heat. The data also indicated that the most affected, were women and those with interrupted careers due to unpaid care responsibilities, as well as those in informal jobs.
As a European Union member state, Hungary is bound by the union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, which in article 34 includes obligations to protect entitlements to social security and social services, and to respect the right to social assistance to combat social exclusion and poverty, and by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights to ensure social security, an adequate standard of living, and the highest attainable standard of health.
The post Hungary’s elderly poverty rate nearly tripled since 2018, rights group says appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.