Poll: Over two-thirds of Czechs say their real income fell

Prague, Feb 14 (CTK) - More than two thirds of Czechs believe that they can now buy less for the income of their household than a year ago, according to a survey the CVVM polling agency made in January.

The results are moderately better than last year's figure which was the worst ever. The poll's results were comparable only at the beginning of 2008.

A total of 21 percent of the respondents complain that they can buy much less and 47 percent that they can buy a bit less than last year.

Over a quarter see the real income of their household as roughly the same as a year ago and only 4 percent can buy a bit more for their income than last year.

The answers are strongly related to the subjective evaluation of the standard of living of households, CVVM said.

Half of the content people answered that they can buy for their income more than a year ago or roughly the same, while 90 percent of those with poor standard of living claim they can buy less than a year ago.

People aged over 60, pensioners and unemployed are more discontent with their income, while the answers of entrepreneurs with employees are relatively favourable.

Four fifths of people expect the Czech crown to be weaker this year, over a sixth believes it will remain at the same level and 2 percent expect to be able to buy more for the same amount of money this year. Inflation expectations thus have not changed against last year, according to CVVM data.

More than a third of the respondents think that the current inflation is acceptable and nearly a half that it is too high. The share of those who consider the current inflation as unacceptable has thus grown by 28 percentage points since January 2007.

"At the same time, this is the worst result of comparable surveys since the end of the 1990s. The current evaluation of inflation has got to a level where it regularly moved in 1993-1998 when inflation in fact was much higher than now. A significantly worse result was seen only in the middle of 1997 after a huge speculative attack on the Czech crown and the breakout of an open economic crisis," CVVM added.

The poll was made among 1,032 respondents aged over 15 in the middle of January.