How Orban’s “Pro-Baby” Policies are Bankrupting Hungary 

"Why is [insert politician here] concerned about the demographic crisis?" ...Because they don't want the country's pension/tax systems to collapse by 2075. Next question.

As a hungarian, I think the emigration of young hungarians as part of the problem is missing from this video. It has many causes, but one of them Orban's illiberal policies, which make the country less attractive to the more left leaning youth. So the most educated, young and wealthy populus is leaving the country, which is the biggest sin of Orban's regime in the historic scale. Many hungarian children are born abroad, which doesnt help the hungarian fertility rate, and they most propably will never be hungarians in the future.

He talks so much about "making Europe great again" but can't even make Hungary average

The family allowance program was a total flop, it contributed greatly to the housing crisis in Hungary. They should have gone with social housing programs and government owned construction initiatives (but you see, that would have lowered house prices, and we can't have that).

As a Hungarian woman myself who does want to have children in the future I can tell you that these measures are not going to be effective until the public hospitals and healthcare system is on the way of collapsing (no money for essential things like soap and disinfectants, imagine giving birth in such place...), also the state of the schooling system (from what I heard there is not enough space in kindergartens, 1 kindergarten teacher for 30+ children). The level of education is also going down. So to provide a good life to your children, you would probably need to pay for private healthcare and private schools. And then I didn't even mention the overall "everyone hates everyone" atmosphere or that my children would be mixed so they would get significant hate in the country. This is why I am an expat and my Hungarian children will probably be born outside of the country.

You left out emigration and that is the most important aspect. Hungarian women often have their children outside of Hungary, because these incentives, are nothing compared to the standards of living that a non autocracy can provide.

Spending double your defense budget on children is nothing to be ashamed of. Not understanding the underlying trends though is something different. Hungary is simply not a pro future society people would want to birth children into.

I love how Japan has been a study on these "benefits" for a while now, but even though it has shown that these benefits never work, they just go and say "ah, they didn't do it right, we will make it right, it will work, you will see!", just to fail again, rinse and repeat.

I'm a hungarian who earns enough to have have children, and is currently married. We see no point getting a child here, because we have no trust in the government's institutions. Hospitals suck, and education is in the dumps. Getting a check for a few thousand euros with no strings attached does NOT help me, getting good quality education and healthcare for my child does, else I end up paying for private waaaay more than what little they helped. Also the "160k of new children" is a completely fudged number. It takes the lowest ever birth rate (i think early 2010s), extends it till now, and assumes that as a baseline births we would have had, had the policies not been enacted. Thus, it attributes any "extra" as the result of policies. This is just headline hunting math, sure some kids were born because of the extra money, but large parts of the 160k would have been born even without the benefits as we had one of the best economic growth cycles in the 2010s. Old people love these policies, but they are not the people who have to "make" the children. Also the video mentions that tax breaks are only effective for people that earn above a certain salary threshold. This is factually false. In Hungary we do NOT have progressive income tax brackets. Even minimum wage earners need to pay 15% income tax, and 18.5% social security tax. By getting 4 children you no longer pay the 15% income tax, but you still pay the 18.5% social security tax.

Its easy, people in Hungary finish University and move to Austria, Czechia or Poland, its been like this since Orban became nationalist for old people

As a Hungarian, first of all, I'm very glad that TLDR finally made a video about Hungary, which focuses on the reality and shows the real economic and social problems of the country. I'm also glad, that this video was not used to demonize Hungary or falsely calling us pro-Russians, Orban-lovers and nationalists, but to show some of the real life problems, which Orban make in Hungary with his policies. About the topic, Orban is a huge fan of families with three or more children. In 2015, the government created the Family Home Creation Allowance policy (in Hungarian: CSOK), with which Hungarian families - based on how many children they have - could get a certain amount of money. This policy was ongoing until 2023, but still available in villages as of 2024. A couple with one child could get €1.500, while with two children, a couple could be granted with an amount of between €3.300 and €6.600, based on what kind of home you wanted to get. But if you had three or more children, you could have as much as €25.000 for obtaining a home. If we make calculations with the number of children and the amount of support the government gives to the couples, these amounts are absolutely unequal. This is a clear sign, that the Hungarian government proudly supports you with their family policies, if you have at least 3 children. If you have only 1 child or 2 children, you will gain almost nothing. For my father, I'm his 4th son, but for my mother, I'm her only child - and my 3 half-brothers are already in the 30s or 40s. My mother gets barely enough support from the government (mainly just increased family allowance). She has a low-paying job, she works at least 7-8 hours in a special school, but she only earns €600, which is the net minimal wage in the county, where we live. The family policy of Orban and the Hungarian government seems to be fascinating to see as an outsider, but in reality, this system is a lot more hierarchical and unstable than you might even think. Here, you only matter to the government, if you have at least 3 children, otherwise you will get rarely or no support at all. Despite Orban encouraging Hungarian women to give birth to more children, this will still not solve the countless economic problems in Hungary as well as the demographic crisis. How the government handled the inflation and the rising prices in the last 1-2 years is critical and there were numerous scandals around them. No wonder, why did they lose more than 1 million supporters in the last two years. And if the economic problems won't solve in the next few years, Hungary will continue to suffer from the demographics crisis, as more young people will rather settle in Western Europe for higher living standards and better opportunities, than start to build a career here in Hungary. Thank you very much TLDR for finally making a very detailed and realistic video about the current real economic and social problems of Hungary!

Housing subsidies and the "baby loan" done nothing since those who sold houses raised real estate prices building in the extra cash into the base prices of said real estates...so this resulted in families going back to square one, and those couples who do not have children but would like to buy a home, now have to pay 30.000 EUR more, bcs of the Baby Loans handed out to families with kids. Orbán is struggling, but nothing ia happening...

Same happens here in Bulgaria. Us, Bulgarians, think that these "benefits" are not helping at all, but imigrants and gypsies are gladly taking em by having like 6-9 children each and letting them live in poverty!

my hometown in South Germany has a high birthrate, because living there is family friendly and provides a positive future. only housing crisis is limiting it...

Tax break for mothers doesn't work because mothers with 4+ children usually don't have a job as they need to dedicate 100% of their time to a family. Instead you need to just pay them or have tax exempts to households.

Hungary: Scandinavian taxes, Balkanian government services

*70% inflation in the past 10 years* Conservatives: "Why aren't young people having kids?!"

It's rather obvious why people aren't having children. They can't afford to and don't want to as they have lost hope for the future.

I will fix Hungary's demographic crisis

Hungarians do not want to become peoples of mixed race"? The Hungarians have been a people of mixed race since the Magyars arrived in Europe from Asia a thousand years ago. Even their language today has its roots on the far side of the Urals.

Call me crazy, call me a pacifist, call me an ideologist, but I really think it is a good thing to spend more money for family than for defence

My plumber in the UK has been married to a Hungarian woman for about 15 years. They have two children and want two more. Later this year they are moving to Hungary because they think it would be advantageous to do so precisely because of these policies. He is already in the building trade and they are planning a big house based on selling up their UK home and taking advantage of Hungarian state loans and subsidies.

Two economists are walking in a forest when they come across a pile of shit. The first economist says to the other “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The second economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit. They continue walking until they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist turns to the first and says “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The first economist takes the $100 and eats a pile of shit. Walking a little more, the first economist looks at the second and says, "You know, I gave you $100 to eat shit, then you gave me back the same $100 to eat shit. I can't help but feel like we both just ate shit for nothing." "That's not true", responded the second economist. "We increased the GDP by $200!"

As other commenters have pointed out, a massive issue is that Hungary's public services, healthcare and education system are all struggling, barely keeping on in a lot of instances with the government seemingly openly dismissing these issues, opting to rather trying to silence those who speak up, or to shift the blame to anyone else but them (usually the EU, or "the war"). In situations like this, even people who own large enough homes and/or have stable employment opt for owning pets rather than having children. Or, as others have also pointed out, they emigrate in the hopes for a brighter future for them and their future families.

Orban single handedly caused at least a million Hungarians to leave the country, poverty to skyrocket, birthrates to plummet, and life in the county to be more uncertain than ever. His tax cuts, only work for the richest, and wouldn't have more kids because of that. But plummeting birthrates isn't the problem there. Not even the dictator alone. The whole society itself is the problem. Decent societies can eventually get rid of a tyrant and build a better future, but if the whole society is mentally, emotionally completely broken, beyond saving, beyond repair, then removing one tyrant wouldn't help. I'm glad that Hungary with its society isn't a great power with large population and army and nukes and stuff, but merely an isolated little mini-Russia.

TLDR: His policies are extremely expensive and barely effective. YT: All of europe should be doing this. 🤦🤦‍♂🤦‍♀

Any true politican should. Most pay little to no attention to the crisis and only make the matter worse by choosing to import workers or export work instead of providing better financial and housing stability to allow people to have children Edit : I love how you just changed the title after comment backlash to be "how his policy is bankrupting Hungary" from "Why does he care about birthrates"

"Why is Orban obsessed with fixing Hungary's demographic crisis?" Bro, look at how our population is declining 🔥🔥

Has any country acutally fixed fertiliy problems with cash handouts?

Uganda's population in 1950: 4 million Uganda's population in 2024: 47 million 🤐🤐🤐

Not the tax cuts are the main problem in Hungary. Orbans regime is the main problem in Hungary.

More drastic measures must be taken to prevent demographic collapse.

2023 in Hungary: - In January, bread inflation was almost 82%, food inflation was over 48%, general inflation was 26.2%, three times the EU average! - In the first quarter, real wages fell the most in Hungary with a 15.6%, which is 4 times of OECD average - In July our money lost 36% of its value in 2 years due to inflation !!! - In January, Lőrinc Mészáros, Orban's main strawman increased the monthly tolls by 72% after he bought the 35-year motorway concession - Lőrinc Mészáros bought a yacht for 27 billion forints, which is almost 11,000 years of average Hungarian pension. Mészáros's wealth increased by 50%, 330 billion forints in a single year - The Matolcsy, the head of central bank (MNB), bought an apartment in New York for 14 billion forints, which is equivalent to 5608 years of average Hungarian pensions. Meanwhile, the MNB has accumulated losses of HUF 2400 billion - The Orbán family's visible! wealth reaches HUF 100 billion, Orbán's father built a mansion in Hatvanpuszta for 10 billion forints - The cows on János Lázár minister's stud farm got waterbeds for HUF 3 billion from the state! - In 2023, Romania overtook Hungary in GDP per capita, - In 2023, Bulgaria overtook Hungary in per capita consumption, making Hungary the poorest member of EU. - Hungary has the 2nd lowest average wage and minimum wage in the EU ! - The Dear Leader has finally found the magic weapon against inflation: he just had to fire the leading statisticians of the Hungarian Statistical Office, put them under the Rogán-led propaganda ministry and the single-digit inflation was achieved...! In 2023, the consumer price index was still 17.6% and food inflation 25.9%. - In 2023, growth (-0.9%) was the 3rd worst in the EU - 700 billion forints spent by the government to buy the Vodafone Hungary and give it away to Orban's stooge (equivalent to about 280,000 years of average Hungarian pensions) - 2021 foreign human traffickers were released from Hungarian prisons in 2023 (official explaination: keeping them in prison is too expensive) - There are already 100,000 Asian migrant workers in Hungary, who are undercutting the wages of Hungarian workers, with their numbers increasing by about 1,000 a month - 40% of the Hungarian population run out of money by the end of the month, with no savings - The Hungarian birth count has fallen to an all-time low - OTP survey shows that 94 out of 100 young people do not want to work in Hungary ! - 125,000 Hungarians already work in Austria - Half a million Hungarians have disappeared in 10 years, the country's population is below 9.6 million, at 1953 levels and falling - In 2023 the budget deficit was 4593 billion forints , about 6.5 percent of GDP, more than double the 3 percent accepted by the EU, the Hungarian state paid the largest interest burden after the national debt in the EU to GDP (4.3%), the interest expenses amounted to HUF 3,500 billion, which is equivalent to 1.26 million years of Hungarian average pension, meanwile GDP growth rate was -0.9%. - In december, a new law was launched to silence critical media outlets and civil organizations!

These fertility crises are becoming ever more frequent -Japan, South Korea, Hungary, the U.S…. It’s almost as if having children has become unaffordable… nah that can’t be it.

Because demographic problems are pretty concerning for a country/economy? 😅🤔

Ultimately, European countries need more children if they want to have a future.

I guess treating humans like a birthing-machine farm business didn't work out that well.

Helping just parents doesn't work, because the parents see people around in a bad place and don't want to bring a child into the world in such circumstances.

If Orban was my president, I wouldn't want to make kids either. I'd want to escape.

Even phrases like “natalist” & “immigration as a solution” are strange. Natalism is just being normal to want a productive, healthy society & immigration is not a solution; it’s short term economic boost at best that doesn’t solve the problem & creates its own unique ones

People need super cheap housing. When do they gonna understand?!

„Hungarians do not want to become people of mixed race“ Genghis Khan and the Ottoman Empire: 🤫😝

Who wouldn’t?

nothing gets you going like a tax brake. :,D

As a hungarian I must add to this video that the other way Orban trying to achieve this number is banning abortion or making it as hard to get as possible. (As a "mother" you'll have to first listen to the heartbeat of the child and ONLY after that you'll become aligible for the abortion, which risks running out of time)

maybe increase the taxes of billionaires who were gonna buy a second 300 million dollar yacht with 5 different new villas with staff, and spend some of it on families who need money to raise kids

Hungary's policy is actually somewhat impressive when contextualized. Every country in the world except Hungary and 2 others have had decreasing TFR over the past 10 years, so even a moderate increase is significant

i heard someone discussing the fertility drop recently. And they said that the majority of the fall in fertility in industrialised nations over the last 70 years can be explained by a massive reduction in women getting pregnant under the age of 18. So basically, not enough teenage mothers is the problem. I remember when i was young the scourge of teenage mothers was a very popular moral panic among conservatives here in the UK for quite a few years. Teenage mothers were publicly scapegoated for every social and economic ill of the nation. Well they got what they wanted, teenage pregnancy has massively reduced, and not only have all the problems they blamed teenage mothers for not gone away, now their absence has caused a new crisis to panic about

Fertility rates should be increased in every country in Europe, congratulations Orban for this measures . He should have focused on this point when in charge of EU and not visiting dictator's.

It's not always about the money. So measures like this can only go so far.

@TLDR, what you still refuse to acknowledge is, that each year in Hungary even thou the number of woman able to be a mother is decreasing, the number of children born is the same. so since women in their 20s are like 50% compared to women in 40s in Hungary, so fertility of 1.5 rate done by 50% of the women is actually a good result. the real issue is that the benefits of those policies done in Hungary, would not be seen for at least another 10 years, when realistically, the people born in 2010s would start to have their own children.

STOP CALLING IT FERTILITY. It's not a fertility stat. it's a 'willingness to have/pay for kids' stat. For the longest time, i thought it was related to biological reasons.

perhaps if people weren't so exhausted from working so hard for so little, they could afford the time and money to invest in children.

Why do they only ever try money? Never time off work, or time off looking after children. One of the biggest things with having kids isn't just money, it's lack of free time.

Surprise, nobody wants to spend their future in a dystopian parafascistic regime.

Immigration is not a solution to low fertility in any way. At most, it's a palliation of symptoms.

BS! he is investing that money into a furure Hungary vs NO Hungary. To be or not to be.

A quick correction for 6:22 . In Hungary, there is no minimum limit for income tax, even minimum wage folk pay 15%.

the numbers you present show that financial incentives do work: the decline came with war in neighboring Ukraine, inflation, post covid economic issues and doubling interest rates which made home ownership much harder to achieve. The 30kEUR loan's interest you have to pay in one lump sum in case no baby is born in 5 years went up so high that no one in their right mind would risk having to pay it. So I think the policies worked but weren't enough. The tax break you get for kids was eaten by inflation, it's still the same nominal amount as it was back in 2011. The loan was limited to under 30s instead of under 40s because the state budget is in a bad shape. But the budget's bad shape is not caused by family subsidies, so it's a nonsensical statement that the costs of these programmes are bankrupting Hungary. Lack of EU funds and high interest rates are the real cause. The government's responsibility in the latter is not negligible to put it mildly, but the policies breaking the Hungarian budget are not family the subsidies. You also state that there are people earning below the minimum taxed wage, but that's just false because the income tax is flat 15% from your first earned Euro. Or forint, that is.

The whole tax system should be child centric

we dont want to be a mixed race is fucking funny.... since we are the most mixed race in the balkanXDXDXD

How just be born [insert tribal identity] makes you better than others? Hungary has a broken education system, run by the Home Secretary, ex-police chief maffia boss [he runs the healthcare too] Having children is a long term commitment and huge responsibility. Just birthing is not enough, you have to raise them and that is very hard in Hungary. [payout and tax-breaks are just not enough without future education, social services and healthcare] (I was raised in Hungary)

This is what happens when populist ambitions (mixed with demagoguery) meet reality. Like other authoritarians, Orban refuses to learn from other examples.

Pro child policies are not expensive, compared to the expense of a collapsing demographic. THINK

Thank you TLDR news for explaining the accurate situation of Hungarian politics and i hope you will keep showing the unlawful geopolitical actions of them.

The obvious problem is that the policies are most beneficial to the richest women. They tend to be the least inclined to have many children and it is expensive to bribe them into having more. Simply giving women cash, especially for 2nd and subsequent births, would be more efficient. Some women with low incomes and poor employment prospects would be tempted to make birthing their career.

if your economy is predicated on infinite growth it has foundational issues

Every country has the same low birth rate problem, but lets pretent that its only the country we don't like that has that problem. Still it's better than bringing milions of radicalised muslims to fix population decline

Majority of Hungary money comes from EU funds without that they would have 50 billion deficit every year

The French had such programs after WW2... It worked.

The only way to fix the fertility crisis is to add taxes on childless women.

There is a strong correlation between less to loose and higher birth rate. Less to loose more children.

Here's a defacto solution, regulate the housing market. Instead of corporations making as much money as possible, regulate the price to cover the cost only. Done, housing prices drop by at least 30% if not 80%. Now the population can afford to have children.

"How dare a leader care about the health and development of his people?" Orban does have a lot of problems, but him attempting to fix the demographic crisis is very good. Every country should focus on having a healthily growing population. Orban spending ressources on that doesn't make him "obsessed" but rather more foreward thinking that most other European leaders who either ignore the issue or rely on immigration.

"Money can't fix the problem." Bravo!

It baffles me that politicians think people are too stupid to understand that children cost far more than any pathetic financial benefit they offer. If you want people to have more kids, make pre and post natal care free - and guarantee lifelong free childcare for all children born within the narrow window of the program. That’s real cost savings - and a dash of FOMO to incentivise immediate action.

To add to this, there is some interesting and insightful data to add to this in regards to reproduction rates, and that is the gypsy minority of Hungary. On paper, 3-4% of the population identifies as roma, altough in reality this number is somewhere around 11%. The reason roma people feel discouraged to identify as roma is beacuse they are afraid they face discrimination for it (I wonder why). Within Hungary, (and other Eastern European conutries as well) the roma communities often live in (racially) segregated surroundings. This means segregated communities (which is the fault of the government only in the sense that it does not try to deal with it, but doesn't enforce it), segregated education (explicitly roma schools and classes inside schools, yes very bad and criminal outright), being forced into underpaid labor or being pressured into working without a working contract (the employers dont pay the state after them, etc). The list goes on, and there's no incentive to make their lives better, there's a rapid impoversihing trend in the country instead. Anyway, the point I tried to make is that this 10-11% of the population is responsible for around 1/3 (33%) of all births in the country, meaning the (as a majority) poor discriminated minority is disproportionately representing reproduction (shocking). Between 2006-2050, they are set to double their proportion as a percentage of the population. Hungarian youth is extremely liberal and pessimistic about the state of the future, emigration is currently hitting record highs, etc. People do not have kids out of spite. What I meant to portray is that the situation is significantly more dire than portrayed even in the video. This is just to have a real glimpse into the reality of the hungarian society and it's highly praised conservative policies.

How many children does orban have

So basically the argument is, "Yeah, the incentives are working. But they are not working enough." Seems like a good start to me.

Accepting a slower economic growth rate to maximize time spent at home by legally limiting the working hours per week per person with intolerance towards a violation of said law is a step

The real solution would be massively increasing the taxes on contraception, making it highly unavailable. But nobody will ever do that, as it's a highly unpopular solution. Once contraception becomes more available in the middle east and africa, their birthrates will also massively decline, but, just as here, nobody will ever speak about the availability of contraception as the main culprit. It's a horrible issue as, after all, contraception leads to lower spread of STD's and gives more freedom to women. But it also MASSIVELY reduces fertility rates. And immigration is a short term solution, because in Islamic culture, it's perfectly normal and even glorified to marry one's cousin - and they continue to do that even when they migrate. Literally ALL muslim countries have insanely high consanguine marriage ratios, which will inevitably lead to horrible side effects, including infertility, as is now happening in Pakistan, where this ratio is over 70%. It's a brutally complex problem for which, I think, an international solution will be needed.

this isn't an issue that simple minded politician can solve, not unless there's deep research done on it by the best universities and intellectuals that can figure out all the root sociological, economical and other reasons for it

On many point I may not like Orban but he do make excellent point on both immigration and natalism

Either they pay you, or they pay migrants...you choose

People are smart, world wide, not having children.

Pension spending is actually the Elephant in the room, it's the single biggest expense in most developed nations, by a margin, and it will be worse in future.

Subsidising new housing loans is a huge mistake. I don't understand why everyone is doing this. The same thing is happening in my country. The only result has been that house prices have gone up, and now even more people can't afford to own property. Instead, they should build houses for new families, similar to social housing. Very few talk about this, but politicians only listen to what the banks want.

What do you mean why? Isn't it obvious? Or is it a problem he wants more natives Europeans instead of more "doctors" and "engineers" ?

There is absolutely 0 problem with population decreasing. We produce more than enough resources to maintain the aging population. In addition, there is nothing inherently wrong with population decreasing. It is only a problem with capitalism, because it means line not go up, which hurts profits and infinite growth.

In another video, you showed the correlation between low birth rate and high housing costs. A law could he helpful: House contractors are allowed to build only apartments with more then 120 m2 and 4 bedrooms. In this way, the low entry apartments (just 1.room) would become scarce, lowering the price of larger apartments

This is wild. Why should there not be more spending on family than Defence, why not focus on families, it’s what makes functioning sustainable societies.

European women are looking at South Korean births where women decided to let it burn and loads of us are choosing the same path, I know I did! My ex employer asked me why I decided to never have children... The audacity! I turned to him and asked him if his rich children need a new generation of poor children to exploit... His face! 😳 And to shut this "conversation" down forever I told him that by choosing to not give birth to more children I took away from him not only a future generation of workers but also the future generation of consumer! Let this 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

2:15 it’s not “controversial” to want Hungary to be made up of actual Hungarians in the future.

the hate is real.

I was building a house in a time when house support started. All prices just went higher for value of maximum loan. If you have 3 kids you were at same. For rest of us houses got more expensive. Money went to government friendly companies who profited from this.

5:00 It is worth noting that the Hungarian Statistical Office also takes into account babies born abroad to Hungarian parents. Of these 160,000 newborns, at least a third live in the UK, Austria or Germany with parents who have emigrated due to the controversial political climate in the country.

160,000 new babies being born is better than 160,000 less babies. I personally believe its the EU putting pressure on hungry financially not supporting the war on ukrain. It will go up given time.

"Conservative prominent figures........ .....including the Pope" Are you sure about that?

The solution is not pegging a nations wellbeing to unfeasible infinite growth…

He hasn't done anything to address economic uncertainty among young Ukrainians. These breaks are only useful if you already have children not if you feel uncertain about your future and have put it off.