Gap between minimum wage, starvation line further increases in September

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The Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türk-İş) has released the findings of the "Starvation and Poverty Line Survey," which it conducts every month to reveal the living conditions of employees and the effects of price changes to families' budgets.

For a family of four living in the capital city of Ankara, the "starvation line" rose to 3,049 lira from 2,926 lira in August, the Türk-İş found. Starvation line is defined as the minimum food expenditure for a healthy, sufficient and balanced diet for a family of four.

The poverty line, which includes expenditures for clothing, housing, transportation, education, healthcare and other needs in addition to food expenditures, was 9,391 lira in September, down from 9,533 lira in August.

The "living cost" of a single working person was 3,572 lira this month.

The minimum monthly wage in Turkey is 2,826 lira. (1 US dollar = 8.85 Turkish lira)

According to the report;

1. Monthly food expenditures of a family of four have increased by 122 lira since last month, 459 lira since the start of the year and 601 lira since the same month last year.
2. In the first nine months of the year, the increase in prices was 17.72 percent.
3. In the last twelve months, the rate of increase in food inflation was 24.56 percent.

Inadequate nutrition

"It is clear that the income of low-income families is not at a level that can even meet the necessary expenses for adequate and balanced nutrition," noted Türk-İş.

"Families have to choose between consumer goods considering their prices in order to meet the nutritional and non-nutritional expenditures. Most of the time, they choose low-priced food instead of high-priced food.

"Families in this situation are highly likely to meet some of their non-nutritive expenditures by reducing their nutritional expenditures. As a result, low and insufficient income causes low-income people and families to have an unhealthy and unbalanced diet." (HA/VK)