There are some districts in the country where entire villages have no jobs. There are several social strata facing a desperate situation due to a serious deterioration in living standards. Gypsies, for instance, are suffering from an extremely high unemployment rate of around 50 percent. Those with big families are unable to feed and clothe their children properly. Pensioners have to choose between food and medicine.
Young couples are unable to afford their own housing because monthly rents exceed their salaries.
The process of structural adjustment eliminated past controls and price subsidies which had existed earlier for basic amenities. These steps, together with some other measures, accelerated the inflation into a range of 20-30 percent. The import regime was liberalized. Foreign firms got free access not only to the Hungarian market but, after buying out the Hungarian export sectors, to the Hungarian export market too. As a result of privatization, almost all the bigger enterprises got into the hands of foreign multinationals.