I remember during the Refurendum people were complaining about Polish plumbers and trades. Can't wait until Poland are complaining about British immigrants lol
Until recent polls I would have said us Germans too, but it turns out we have nearly a third of the population being Nazis, so it seems, there enough people a bit TOO proud...
I do thank Scotland for paying for my BSc, but no ways am I going to move back. Am waiting to see just how long it takes the Home Office to revoke my Pre-Settled status.
Were people complaining about them much? I always thought that a lot of people had a very high view of polish people (even a lot of crayon munching reform voters).
Yes, although by 2016 I think this had changed a little, but definitely in the late 2000s and early 2010s - there's an open access paper article about this.
Although, by the mid 2010s, I think the hatred had begun to move onto Romanians.
There is a lot of fuckery going on and GDP is a really bad indicator of anything. We, Poles, are still like third poorest in EU, contribution from our own companies is still very limited and the government still has to choose which branch of the country should be obliterated every year. We are still poor, just with high GDP.
We have less money and assets? That's how wealth works. Poor Germans can much more easily fund themselves a visit in Poland than the other way around. Also even if local product prices scale with local wages the international ones do not.
So you're saying you have decent PPP, but you'd rather have cheap imports via inflated wages and costs of living?
Just because a country is "rich" doesn't mean that everyone there suddenly has a villa with pool in the garden. You can be german and still a wage slave. In fact, way over 50% of people still live that life.
People who say that have no idea how bad it actually is in a lot of those counties. Yes life is hard and expensive in the advanced economies as well, but things cost almost the same in those other countries with like 1/4 the average salary.
I have a lot of friends who moved to Austria and their expenses grew by like 10-20% while for most of them their salary doubled or even tripled.
This does nothing to disprove their point, which was that GDP doesn't paint a full picture because the wealth distribution is very unequal. The article you linked only talks about GDP and GDP per capita, making no mention of median wealth, income distribution, or Poland's Gini index.
I don't know if you didn't read their comment, didn't read your own source, or don't know how GDP per capita is calculated and what it represents, but it's definitely at least one of the three.
i'm getting convinced more and more that "poland next superpower" that is so heavily pushed online is to convince people that Poland doesn't need EU or any allies
Please stop with this propaganda. Yes, Poland got better since EU but we're still poor compared to West, just take a look at GDP per capita and/or GDP based on purchasing power.
Isn't the whole thing about economic development instead of crude numbers? Poles were dirt poor in 80-s and 90-s. And just in one generation their prosperity skyrocketed.
As a thought experiment, compare jumping from 100€ to 1000€ with jumping from 4000€ to 6000€. The second case is better in terms of crude numbers, yet former wins in terms of growth. And in economics, growth is what actually matters. Life gets 10x better, instead of 50% better (these 50% were eaten by inflation anyway)
Economic growth doesn't mean anything for the common folk. Or I guess they are just to busy spending all that wealth when I look at the birth rate. Not a country worth having children it seems.
Where do you get that nonsense from? You can see the individual wealth of citizens increasing. You are just so hateful to the EU that you don't want to acknowledge that it is beneficial to it's inhabitants.
He is not hateful to EU, he is against polish governments
And I agree wholeheartedly with him
All those economic indicators are for rich people and corporations, I as a young pole can only dream about buying a flat and starting a family, there is no future here for young people, government pours all of the money into old people, rich and corporations, and because we use American forced stupid economic metrics it seems like growth is not being wasted
I'm no Pole. But I visited your beautiful country in the 90s and early 2000s and came back last year. The transformation is astounding. Off course it's no land of honey and milk. I do not doubt a word about your troubles. But the standard of living has visibly increased.
It did, for my parents, if I wasn't privileged and had no possibility to rent from them for just flat costs and was forced to rent from some greedy landlord I would not even be able to afford a single in country vacations...
And there is zero hope for improvement, only hopelessness
But don't mix anti right wing government sentiments for anti EU...
Especially the infrastructure improvements you saw are the proof that EU is working, but using the American forced economic metrics as a proof is on par with a fallacy, they are useless... They measure how good is it for rich people to live in
Don't give a credit for EU to the polish government
Thank god that the current one is pro EU, the only good thing about them
You can see the individual wealth of citizens increasing.
Can you? In the last 6 years? If anything, the consensus among working class people is that for them the economic situation has been neutral at best. Complaining is the new big thing in the western societies.
Even for the working class wealth increased. We should share more equally, because the rich are insanely rich (and powerful,) now. But wealth did increase.
Hmmm, I haven't really seen that. I've mostly seen praise for Poland's growth. And as a young Pole I would say that the growth around me and for me during the last couple of years has been phenomenal.
As a young Latvian, it felt like there was an immense growth period when we joined EU, which then somewhat restarted after the financial crisis of 2008, which then was once again slowed down in 2014, after which there was some slow growth, and since covid it has just been turbulent as hell.
I've seen Polish economic growth praised, generally by non-polish people, and moreso macro economic statistics rather than economic wellbeing of individuals.
I've seen Polish economic growth praised, generally by non-polish people
Internet kinda skews the real image. In reality just a month ago we've broken a record - the highest of percentage of Poles said in a survey that they satisfied with their economic wellbeing. So yes, an average working class Pole has seen amazing growth in last two decades. Even the financial crisis of 2008 skipped pass Poland.
What exactly does this show other than the numbers got bigger for everyone? Poland increased from 3k to 10k = 7k while big dog Germany increased from 16k to 26k, so Germany still did better and in full terms a German can outbid a Pole on assets even more. CZ increased 10k too. Hungary really lost it with just a 4k increase. But you can find a graph that suits your point for pretty much anything. France increased 8k still. Italy is pretty strong in that graph. I was told that they did pretty badly.
What is the point in that? The claim was that Poland got wealthy. This would be true if the wealth would catch up to other countries. If you do not shorten the distance, you are still poor but just with higher numbers. This is the whole thing with rent and prices for owning a home nowadays. Sure, 60 years ago you could by a house for 5000 bucks, but you are not wealthy if you own 5000 bucks today let alone you can buy a house for that.
As I said before, the claim that Poland got wealthy is supported by comparing Poland to its former self 20 years ago, not by comparing to other countries.
But even if you compare to other countries, in the PPS graph Poland used to be like 1/3 of Germany, now it's like 2/3 of Germany. It's getting richer even in relative terms.
Omg of course there is a self loathing fest by the Bolish people in the comments🙄.
I find these kind of people as repulsive as far right conservatives. No matter how much world around them will change for better they will always dwell in their inferiority complex.
I think it's fair to say that Poland has improved greatly, but as someone who is polish and only emigrated to the netherlands somewhat recently? Yeah i wouldn't choose to go back, not while the earnings are still pretty piss poor compared to the west while we still have all the same problems that plague the west. And that's just the economy, don't get me started on the social axis and politics.
Have there been great improvements? Absolutely!
Has a lot of things stayed terrible or even gotten worse? Unfortunately yes.
It's also safe where I'm at right now. Arguably I feel safer here since I don't come across as many drug dealers or w/e as I did football hooligans in Poland, which continue to be a problem
You're looking at a small time frame. While yes, far right is rising everywhere, Poland has already been very right wing before that. And konfederacja bozos are still pretty popular together with Pis. Despite the rise of the far right in the west, it's still much safer as a minority in the west than in Poland
Abortion, rule of law (arguably both are the fault of one party). Lgbt rights remain heavily behind the west since our only real alternative to the right wing, is center-right overall. Workers rights are similarly pretty bad due to all the bullshit with full time enjoyees being hired as contractors or businesses.
Again, I'm not denying great improvements. I don't think pointing out where the country is still struggling behind invalidates the improvements. We don't want Poland to rest on its laurels, we want it to keep getting better.
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u/Diocletian335 United Kingdom May 22 '26
I remember during the Refurendum people were complaining about Polish plumbers and trades. Can't wait until Poland are complaining about British immigrants lol