The school year in Hungary traditionally begins on the last Friday in August while family subsidies and other forms of state support are normally transferred in the first week of the month, but to help families with the increased spending EMMI has brought forward bank wire payments to August 27 while families without bank accounts will have the money mailed to them in the first half of this week, Magyar Idők reported.
Katalin Novák, state minister for family affairs said the money will help some 1.2 million children and depending on social status, the amount will be in the tens of thousands of HUF per child. In case of a large family, the total state help can reach HUF 100,000 (US$360), she said.
In the past eight years the conservative government has implemented a series of measures to reduce families’ financial burden, such as free textbooks and free meals for children in the first nine school years.
Nóra Király, leader of the Young Families’ Association said that this year’s state support for free meals during school has increased by 10 percent. Earlier deputy finance minister András Tállai told the newspaper that total state support for families has doubled since the current administration came to power in 2010. He said the various forms of family support – such as tax and duty rebates, child rearing assistance and housing grants – have helped tens of thousands of families.
