“There’s no way the HCSO’s income poverty data could have developed this way naturally,” commented Zsolt Németh, former Deputy President of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO), in response to the academic analysis published alongside our article by Annamária Tátrai and András Gábos. Their study shows that the HCSO has, been publishing poverty data for years that raise the possibility of professional error or even manipulation. According to the statistician who held a senior position at the HCSO between 2010 and 2017, the probability of so many people having incomes just above the poverty line is practically zero.