Inequality, and increase in consumption

Analysing fresh data on consumer spending last year, a liberal analyst ascribes a sizeable  (2.7 per cent) increase in household consumption at least partly to the fact that 2014 was an election year, with Parliamentary, European and local council elections in a row.

On 444, Márton Kasnyik then devotes the rest of his article to picking through the data released by the Central Statistical Office. It turns out that the per capita consumption of the top fifth of the population is almost four times the amount spent by the bottom 20 per cent. As to the utility tariff cuts of the past year, these saved the bottom fifth half as much as the wealthiest 20 per cent, although the impact of that saving was higher in percentage to overall household incomes. The statistics confirm earlier data on regional disparities – consumption in the westernmost region of Győr-Sopron increased by 8 per cent last year, while it stagnated in the north-eastern county of Szabolcs-Szatmár. Kasnyik finds it worrying that the poorest spend all their revenues on consumption without building up savings.

Tags: consumption, economy, Statistics, welfare