After the government reached an agreement with employers and unions on increasing the minimum wage by 15 percent from January, the Socialist Party accused ruling Fidesz of working to the benefit of international companies. The Socialists said the government should seek to reduce the burden on small- and medium-size enterprises rather than grant tax cuts to large firms. They were referring to the simultaneous announcement of cutting the corporate tax to 9 percent. Yes, it used to be 19 percent above HUF 500 million profit and 10 percent below it, so big corporations will definitely benefit more from this – they will also lose the most on the minimum wage rise – but SMEs will be a bit better off as well, which is more than what can be said about the eight-year governing of the Socialists. I’m not even going to get into mudslinging, I’ll just let the numbers speak for themselves. Here are a few things compared between data from either last year or this year (depending on what’s available from the Central Statistical Office) and 2009, the last full year of leftist governing. Inflation was 4.2 percent, this year it will most likely be somewhere around 0 and 1 percent. While in 2009 GDP expansion was actually a decline of 6.7 percent, this year the growth will be above 2 percent. The wages of employees in the healthcare sector increased by about 26 percent in the last seven years, and education workers on average made some 40 percent more in 2015 than they did in 2009. As of 1 January the minimum wage will be a whopping 78 percent higher than it was at the beginning of 2009 and the average wage in the private sector grew by about 46 percent over the same period. Unemployment went down from 10.5 percent to 4.9 percent and pensioners on average get 30 percent more money every month. The number of suicides went down by more than 21 percent, the number of infant deaths dropped 22 percent and even the number of salmonella infections shrank by nearly 16 percent. When you listen to the Socialists or their ex-buddy Ferenc Gyurcsány it seems that Hungary is going straight to hell. I’m not saying that judging by the numbers we are going the opposite direction – that would be heaven – but it feels more and more like we are on the right path.
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