Post-communist states are going through
the same crisis of welfare provision as
states in Western Europe. In Hungary, too,
the institutions that provide the welfare net
are being dismantled. Most recently, social
support has been the target of the cutbacks,
on the grounds that many beneficiaries
would be able to support themselves and
that putting people back into work would
be an effective way of boosting a sluggish
economy, which is growing by less than
1 per cent annually. However, despite a
number of attempts and programmes
designed to encourage job seekers, the
Socialist government, in power for more
than six years, has been unable to improve
employment figures. Less than 57 per cent
of Hungarians between the age of 15 and 74
are at work, which is one of the lowest
percentages in the European Union.
The unemployed, who may receive
benefits up to the minimum wage of around
I270, can take home as much as those in a
full-time job—without doing any work
whatsoever. This arrangement does not
encourage the unemployed to take up jobs
given that most of them are unskilled and
their wages would hardly be higher than the
minimum wage. Surveys have confirmed the
suspicion that benefits deter the unemployed
from work; one out of five is satisfied
and another 27 per cent are reasonably
satisfied with their jobless status.
The latest debate on social support was
set off in May when the local council of
Monok, a village in an underdeveloped
region in the north of Hungary, openly
defied current legislation by refusing to pay
the regular benefits, financed by central
government, to their unemployed unless
they participated in public works. In
addition, the local council stipulated that
child protection support is only to be paid
to parents who enrol their children in
kindergarten or school.
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Before long, this
practice was adopted by half a dozen
settlements, claiming that they have lost
patience with those who consider living on
benefits to be a sustainable lifestyle and
apparently have no intention of getting a
job. In a letter urging statutory amendments,
sent by several settlements in the
region around Monok to Katalin Szili, the
speaker of Parliament, they argued that the
family support system has increasingly
become an incentive for people of low
social status to turn childbearing into a
gainful occupation. It has also, they argued,
led to the organized abuse of benefits and
illegal moneylending, in which loans are
provided to the poor at cripplingly high
interest rates (100 per cent per month is
common). What is more, the letter refers
implicitly to the Roma minority, among
whom unemployment is exceedingly high;
50–60 per cent for men and even higher for
women, whilst at the same time families
typically have a large number of children.
Although public administration offices
and the Ombudsman for Minority Rights
have declared these municipalities’ resolutions
unlawful, the idea of "work for
benefits" has proven popular with the
general public. To the effect that the rising
level of discontent in the affected villages has
at last compelled the government to take
some form of action. Although a "Road to
Work" programme had been announced by
the Prime Minister in February in which
retraining and placement of the unemployed
were included as incentives, the government
took no specific measures until early this
summer. Now the popular reaction to the
Monok initiative forced the government to
urgently start discussions. Thus a number of
NGOs, such as the National Association of
People with Large Families and the National
Roma Self-government, joined the cabinet
in working on a bill to be laid before
Parliament in its autumn session.
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