Hungarian Poverty

Last night I spent time drinking and talking with  Chris and two Hungarian girls he met.  One of the topics  brought up was why Hungary was still using Forints instead of Euros.  Her explanation was that Hungary was too poor.  She said, and I’m trying to quote accurately as possible, that “Hungary is a bucket of shit right now,” it is very poor, she thought maybe the poorest country in the European Union and that being in the EU was very bad for them.

I looked into it and Hungary is not the poorest but one of the 20 poorest countries in the EU with many of the other neighboring central European countries  like Slovakia, Serbia, and Croatia. According to this website I found only 55% of the people in Hungary between the ages of 18 and 62 are employed.  In the transition to capitalism Hungary also lost 1.5 million and since that transition have only managed to regain 0.4 million

http://www.socialwatch.eu/wcm/Hungary.html