Economist: According to current picture, Turkish people may get poorer in 2023

The Turkish Government has raised the minimum wage by about 50 percent before entering the year 2023. But especially considering the objections from the workers’ section (and other sections as well), this hike is far from preventing the Turkish people from becoming poorer according to inflation, which officially hovers over 80% – and even as high as 150 percent as calculated by private academic group and personally experienced in the market, in food sector in particular.

An expert in economy commenting on this issue, drew particular attention to certain points and shared the following.

“POVERTY LIMIT” IS MORE THAN 40 THOUSAND TL AND HUNGER LIMIT WILL BE 15-16 THOUSAND TL IN 4-5 MONTHS

QUESTION (posed to the expert): The hunger limit was 7 thousand 800 TL, according to the statement of the United Public Union, the hunger limit, which was 8 thousand 657 TL in November, increased to 9 thousand 59 TL in December, so the minimum wage is already below the hunger limit of 559 TL, what do you say to that?

ANSWER Yes, you are right, the poverty line was announced as 25 thousand 500 liras and the Unified Public Union calculated it as 26 thousand 124 TL. In a month or two, the poverty line limit probably rise above 40 thousand TL. At the beginning of 2022, they laughed when I said, ‘The poverty line will rise above 25 thousand TL’. Let’s admit that it doesn’t; the current minimum wage is equivalent to a third of the poverty line, isn’t that terrible in itself anyway?

People will have to get this minimum wage for a year under normal conditions – that is, if no other urgent arrangements are made within 2-3 months – and the minimum wage will not even be half of it, since the hunger limit will reach 15-16 thousand TL in 4-5 months. As inflation will also continue to rise, a public profile will emerge that is becoming thoroughly impoverished with the minimum wage remaining at half of the hunger limit.

On the other hand, are we, as human beings, beings who only eat, drink and consume? We have houses, we have cars, if we don’t have these, we take the bus, we have health, education expenses, we have compulsory expenses, we call the figure from which all of these are taken out the “hunger limit”. Now, as politicians or as the President of Türk-Iş Union, you tell people, “Just meet your food needs, it’s enough, you don’t need anything else anyway,” meaning people are completely condemned to poverty. There is officially a transfer of resources here, it is “Take from the poor, give to the rich”, let the poor get poorer, let the middle income level disappear, let the elite rich get richer, let the small tradesmen sink or the farmers sink.

IF THE ELECTION IS HELD IN JUNE, THEY WILL RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE AGAIN IN MAY

QUESTION : “Well, you’re telling me you see this situation, but the country’s leaders continue to build unnecessary bridges, hospitals and they also get loans from other countries but they do not stop wasting funds. Although there is an election approaching they cannot even raise the minimum wage to 9,500 TL. How do you interpret this?

ANSWER: Let’s say the election will be in June, they will make the minimum wage increase in May, remember how they did it last year; it was announced as 4250 in December, then the reactions increased, the voting rates dropped significantly, they immediately pulled it up to 5500 liras. Our people forget quickly. When it went from 4250 liras to 5500 liras, almost 30-35 percent extra increase was made, they will do it this time too.