The Budapester Zeitung (2014) discusses in one of its latest contributions the increasing impoverishment of a broad middle class in Hungary. The deepening of social inequality happens despite good employment rates, as wages are not sufficient to maintain a good standard of living. This depletion favours economic, competitive thinking, envy and also racist slogans against minority groups such as the Rroma. The right-wing nationalist Jobbik party was able to achieve a new record of expressed votes during the last elections: “According to the definition by Eurostat, every third Hungarian is threatened by poverty and social exclusion; compared to 2010, the number of poor increased by more than 100,000 people. Particularly frightening are the estimates in the report concerning how many children are affected by poverty. In today’s Hungary, 620,000 children grow up in poorly insulated homes, 200,000 children live without electricity and thus in the dark, 170,000 children and 140,000 children know no toilet, no bathroom with tub or shower.” This finding is very serious because the impoverishment of the youth reduces their future opportunities of social advancement, what exacerbates social inequality: “A recent research commissioned by the pro-government weekly Heti Válasz and the internet portal Origo.hu classified more than two million people as belonging to the lowest stratum of society, whose lives is virtually hopeless. At least, these people will never ascend into the middle class, the GfK market research institute and the Research Centre for Social Sciences at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences found out (MTATK). Because it is much easier to socially decline within society than to rise socially.” The article uses only statistical information and reproduces deadlocked categories of well-educated, networked rich people and isolated, poor people with deficient education. A little more complexity beyond these categories would have done no harm to the article.  

• Budapester Zeitung (2014) Leben wie in der Dritten Welt. In: Budapester Zeitung online vom 23.6.2014. http://www.budapester.hu/2014/06/23/leben-wie-in-der-dritten-welt/

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