Income or expenditure? Their competing role to characterize the living conditions of households

The individual data bases of the Hungarian Household Budget Surveys are suited to examine the relation between the incomes and expenditures of the households, and to study which of the two variables characterizes better the living conditions of the households, can separate better the poor from the not poor and, respectively, the well-off households from the not well-off ones. In the study the authors try to answer these questions on the data bases of the HBS in 2001 and 2002. It is also examined whether there was any appreciable change in these topics between the two years considered. Authors conclude that, if possible, both variables are to be taken into account in a complex manner, because the really poor are those poor in both respects and the really wealthy are well-off both in income and expenditure