2023-10-23 16:10:02
Personal Finance Survey
Written by Rainer Ackermann
57% of working people are financially worse off today than they were a year ago.
This was revealed by a survey by the public opinion research institute Publicus, which was carried out in September on behalf of the socialist daily newspaper “Népszava”. According to this, finances have deteriorated “slightly” for 33% of all employees and “significantly” for another 24%. Another 30% of those surveyed see their finances as stable, and for one in eight these have even improved since the end of 2022.
Shocks need to be digested
The daily newspaper notes that wages rose by an average of 15.2% in the first eight months of this year (more recent data are not yet available), but that real wages could not increase again until September at the earliest. At the same time, retail sales fell by more than 7%. To support this assessment, the “Népszava” quotes CIB Bank’s chief analyst, Mariann Trippon: “Even if state television says on the news that your real wages are now growing again, people don’t rush straight into the shops to shop.” Private households would have had to endure severe shocks in the past few months that need to be digested first. Consumption will only increase again when people gain confidence in the future.
The vast majority are losing real wages
The Publicus survey also showed that 38% of respondents (!) received no wage increase at all in the last twelve months. For these people, real income has fallen by 15-20% in the face of high inflation. Of the majority who received more wages, 39% had to make do with less than 10% – i.e. they also had to accept significant real wage losses. Only 5% said their salaries had been increased by more than 20%. The cafeteria services, which are made more tax-efficient by the government, do not reach everyone: together with one-off payments, bonuses and premiums, only 37% of those surveyed were able to enjoy such services.
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