Rd 73% of Romanians agree with progressive taxation, tax exemption on minimum wage (survey)

Approximately 73% of Romanians agree with the tax exemption for those who earn the minimum wage on the economy, the progressive taxation of incomes and the additional taxation of those who pollute, according to the study "Values and attitudes of a progressive type in Romania", carried out on the data of an opinion poll conducted at the command of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Romania, Agerpres reports.

According to the source, the study explores the attitudes and perceptions of Romanians towards a series of topics such as taxation, wages, social protection, environmental policies, but also representations regarding the role of the state, the functioning of the health and education system.

"When asked to what extent the state should help those who have such low incomes that they cannot afford to rent or buy a home, 87% agree to such a measure (to a very large extent and to a large extent), 66% of the Romanian population consider that the state should cap the value of rents, while 26% do not agree with such a measure," the source reads.

The survey data shows an almost unanimous support for the increase in the national minimum wage: 82% of respondents fully agree, and 10% agree.

At the same time, 73.3% of respondents believe that a society is fair to the extent that it cares about the poor and those who need help regardless of the context (strongly agree and agree), while 10.7% oppose this idea.

"There is a dominant perception that the Romanian state helps the rich too much," the study authors say.
Approximately 84% of the total respondents are of this opinion and only 5% of the Romanian population consider that the state actually helps the poor too much.

Over two-thirds of the respondents believe that the state should take into account more what the employees want than what the employer wants (71%, compared to the 21% that are in favor of the employers).

At the same time, more than half of the subjects say that the state should pay more attention to the business environment (55%, compared to 33% who argue the opposite).

As far as the education system is concerned, it is perceived as favoring children from wealthy families by the vast majority of respondents (59%), being less interested in encouraging the best and most talented of students or in enough helping children who have learning problems.

Regarding the way of accessing health services, a large part of Romanians (84%) prefer that health services be free of charge for all citizens, regardless of their health contributions. However, a significant percentage (42%) believe that a person's access to health services should depend on how much they pay for it.

Most subjects believe that before 1989 people lived a better life from a socio-economic point of view. Most of them also believe that civil rights and freedom of movement were limited during the communist period.

The study was conducted based on the data of an opinion poll developed at the command of Friedrich Ebert Romania by CC SAS on a sample of 3,666 respondents, representative for the adult population in Romania. The authors of the study are Gabriel Badescu, Sorin Gog and Claudiu Tufis.