Social Minimum and Survival Minimum

In Hungary, the concept of Subsistence Minimum is further divided into two categories: Social Minimum and Survival Minimum. The Social Minimum is the income within which the fulfilment of basic necessities allows such a consumption of goods and services for which there is a mass social demand, albeit at a modest but socially acceptable level and quality. The Survival Minimum is 80–85 per cent of the Social Minimum. It is expressed as an income which allows only a very modest fulfilment of basic necessities connected with a continued life routine.

In Bulgaria, a distinction is made between Social Minimum and the Living Minimum, much along the same lines as in Hungary. The Social Minimum defines in Bulgaria the ‘upper line of poverty’, and the Living Minimum ‘the lower line’. Those who come under the first category are relatively better-off as they are able to spend something on the ‘comforts’; but the living minimum does not provide access to goods other than the bare necessities of life.