Press release, 04.04.2025.
The response of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office to the allegations reported in the article entitled Something is very wrong with the HCSO poverty data published on Válasz Online on 2 April 2025
The Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) follows international standards in both its operations and data processing. The results of the EU-SILC data collection, which is the source of the poverty data, are validated by Eurostat every year and then published in its own database. The statistical data are collected and processed according to strict professional and ethical rules. The HCSO processes all its data series under appropriate professional supervision and communicates the results transparently and accurately in all cases. The HCSO rejects allegations of deliberate manipulation.
In 2018, the Office implemented methodological improvements in the processing of EU-SILC data to improve data quality. As part of this, the HCSO uses administrative earnings data received directly from the National Tax and Customs Office (NTCO) and the Hungarian State Treasury (HST) - at an individual level - to verify income data and fill in missing data. Spikes and congestion points in the distribution of earnings can also be observed in the earnings data from administrative data sources for the public worker wage, the minimum wage and the guaranteed minimum wage.
The observed spike in the income distribution of the EU-SILC data sample is associated with the earnings congestion around the minimum wage. The difference between the net minimum wage and the poverty threshold in these years (2018-2021) was at most small, and hence partly explains the congestion of incomes around the poverty threshold. In 2023, in response to a researcher's request on this issue, the Office indicated that, as in many EU Member States, the HCSO will carry out a major revision of the EU-SILC data sets in the coming years using the 2022 Census data. A full revision of the data sets going back 5 years is underway and the Office will publish the results in the second half of 2025.
In addition, a further refinement and fine-tuning of the estimation procedure has been carried out in 2023 and will be applied retrospectively in the context of the major revision. However, as a result of the revision, the changes will not materially affect the evolution of the relative income poverty rate.
EU-SILC is a sample survey, with respondents self-reporting. A specific feature of sample surveys is that estimates are subject to a fixed sampling error.
Contrary to what is reported in the article, the relative income poverty rate did not show significant differences between 2017 and 2022, ranging between 12.8% and 12.1%. The variation between the data for each year was within the margin of sampling error (around +/– 1.5 percentage points).
Evolution of the relative income poverty rate, 2017–2023
| Denomination | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Relative income poverty rate, % | 12.8 | 12.3 | 12.3 | 12.6 | 12.1 | 13.1 | 14.7 |
| Change in poverty rate, percentage point | –0.6 | –0.5 | 0.0 | 0.3 | –0.5 | 1.0 | 1.6 |
The HCSO has already responded to the concerns about the minimum subsistence level in recent years. In 2016, the Office issued a press release informing users that from then on it would only use the complex indicator of poverty or social exclusion to measure poverty, in line with the practice in EU Member States. In addition, a study on renewing the calculation of the minimum subsistence level was published on the website of the Office.
As regards access to data, researchers can access data files prepared for research in a secure, locked room in the Safe Centre, which contains data that cannot be directly identified, with a high level of protection of statistical data and in strict compliance with data protection legislation. The relevant rules are publicly available on the HCSO website in the Guideline for researchers:
www.ksh.hu/docs/szolgaltatasok/adatigenyles/guideline_for_researchers.pdf
The Office will provide the researcher with the results produced in the Safe Centre after a data protection check, but will not verify or validate the professional content of the results. The purpose of the data protection check is solely to protect individual data. These rules also follow Eurostat's recommendations and international practice, on the basis of which several researchers have carried out hundreds of studies and used the results in their publications during the lifetime of the Safe Centre. In the case referred to in the article, the HCSO acted in accordance with the above, i.e. during the data protection review of the results produced by the researcher, it informed the researcher of the means of accessing the data, but the researcher did not respond despite being repeatedly informed and did not further notify the Office of his/her request.
Despite the allegations in the pseudo-scientific article, the Hungarian Central Statistical Office continues to believe in and is committed to supporting the use of data for genuine scientific purposes and remains open to professional dialogue and cooperation with researchers.
Hungarian Central Statistical Office
H-1024 Budapest, Keleti Károly u. 5-7. Tel./Phone: (+36-1) 345-6000
Postacím/Postal address: P.O.Box 51 Budapest H-1525
http://www.ksh.hu