ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that post-communist social policies intensified a growing trend of Hungarian social policies under communism to blur rather than reinforce the line between the employed, the unemployed, and those who have left the labor force. In Eastern Europe a number of factors were thought to make the political threat of unemployment especially grave. Post-communist changes in the political significance of unemployment can be explained largely as a result of changes in the political meaning of employment. Government programs seemed to recognize the different regional capacities for generating entrepreneurship. Social policies greatly affect how distinct the status of unemployment is from employment or from other forms of non-employment such as retirement and disability. People receiving unemployment benefits are also required to accept jobs in which they can earn at least the equivalent of their unemployment benefit, even if the benefit may be less than the statutory minimum wage.
