The rise of social municipalism: The Tekirdağ model in local intervention against the cost-of-living crisis

For an increasingly large segment of wage earners in Turkey, the economic reality is now summarized in a single sentence: There are price hikes, but no livelihood. In an economic order where high inflation has become permanent and wage increases lag behind the cost of living, the minimum wage has ceased to be merely a base wage and has effectively turned into the average income level of society. However, this “average” does not represent prosperity; it expresses a widespread cost-of-living crisis. With a wage below the hunger threshold, millions of workers are trying to sustain their lives within an economy that is growing in statistics but shrinking in the kitchen.

It is precisely at this point that social municipalism, the most concrete reflection of the social state concept at the local level, stands out as a critical solidarity mechanism that mitigates the social impacts of the economic crisis. In Turkey, where the cost-of-living crisis is deepening, this approach is turning into an important public support line that facilitates access to basic needs for millions of people. In this context, the policies implemented by the Tekirdağ Metropolitan Municipality—such as city restaurants, affordable food and basic services, TEK Market applications that support producers, and extensive social support programs—present a holistic local intervention model that goes beyond social assistance. In this respect, the Tekirdağ experience serves as a remarkable example showing why social municipalism is increasingly assuming a vital role against the deepening livelihood problem.

INCREASING WAGES, DECREASING PURCHASING POWER: How Real Is the Minimum Wage Increase Against Inflation?

The net minimum wage, which will be effective from January 1, 2026, has been announced as 28,075 TL. This figure represents an increase of approximately 27% compared to the 22,104 TL minimum wage determined at the beginning of 2025 and kept constant throughout the year. At first glance, this rate appears to be above the 25.49% revaluation rate applied for 2026 and corresponds to a level close to the 27.44% food inflation announced according to TURKSTAT's December 2025 data.

However, the same increase rate remains significantly behind the annual inflation estimates of approximately 32% by TURKSTAT and 57% by ENAG. Therefore, although the raise may seem high at first glance, it does not create the same effect in terms of the purchasing power of employees.

Keeping the minimum wage constant throughout 2025 led to a serious erosion in the purchasing power of employees. For this reason, the increase made for 2026 remains more of a partial compensation for the loss accumulated during the year rather than a real increase in welfare. Moreover, the fact that the minimum wage is determined only once a year stands out as one of the structural problems that makes real income loss permanent, let alone protecting the purchasing power of low-income groups.

Therefore, the issue that needs to be discussed is not just the announced nominal increase rate. The real question is the position of the minimum wage against the cost of living and its share in social welfare. Does the increase provide a permanent improvement in the living standards of employees, or does it offer only a temporary correction that compensates for a small portion of past losses?

The picture becomes even clearer when evaluated together with TÜRK-İŞ's kitchen expenditure data. In an environment where food prices are rising rapidly, the increase in the minimum wage falls behind kitchen inflation at the very first stage.

HUNGER AND POVERTY THRESHOLDS: The Distance Between Numbers and Real Life

While macroeconomic indicators point to growth, household budgets reveal a completely different picture. In an economy where the minimum wage has effectively become the average wage, what is decisive is not just growth rates; it is the real position of wages against purchasing power and basic living costs.

The net minimum wage, which was 22,104 TL in 2025, was increased to 28,075 TL in 2026 with a 27% raise. Nominally, this increase is significant. However, nominal increase and real welfare increase are not the same thing.

This difference becomes clearer when examining TÜRK-İŞ's February 2026 data. According to the report, the monthly food expenditure required for a family of four to eat only a healthy and balanced diet—that is, the hunger threshold—has risen to 32,365 TL. The poverty threshold, which includes rent, transportation, education, health, and similar basic needs in addition to food expenditures, has reached 105,425 TL.

In light of these data, the net minimum wage remains approximately 4,290 TL below the hunger threshold as of February 2026. In other words, the income of a full-time working individual is not even enough to cover the food needs of a family of four. The gap between it and the poverty threshold is growing larger every month.

This picture moves the minimum wage away from being a “living wage” and turns it into a fragile income level that makes even living alone difficult. Therefore, the issue is not just the wage level, but also the widening gap between growth rates and the cost of living.

Indeed, the same report shows that kitchen inflation is not slowing down either. According to TÜRK-İŞ data, kitchen inflation was calculated as 3.65% monthly, 38.76% in the last twelve months, and 39.43% on an annual average. In periods when food prices rise above general inflation, low-income groups bear the heaviest burden. This is because these groups have to allocate a much larger portion of their income to mandatory expenditures.

For this reason, it is not surprising that while official growth rates are rising, fixed-income groups are becoming poorer in real terms.

The difference between the legal definition of the minimum wage in Turkey and its economic reality also emerges here. The minimum wage has now become a de facto average wage that covers not only a low-income segment but a significant portion of wage earners. This situation shows that every erosion in the minimum wage means a direct loss of income for large segments of society.

If the income of a full-time working individual in an economy remains below the hunger threshold, what needs to be discussed here is not just wage policy. At the same time, income distribution, production structure, and social policy preferences must also be questioned.

TÜRK-İŞ data reveals that the problem being experienced is not temporary but points to an increasingly deepening structural problem. The gap between the hunger threshold and the minimum wage is the result of a loss of welfare accumulated over years, not a single raise period. As wage increases lag behind prices, every new raise actually turns into an announcement that the previous loss could not be compensated.

Precisely for this reason, social municipalism, the most concrete application of the social state at the local level, is no longer just a policy preference; it has become a mandatory area of public intervention that mitigates the social effects of the cost-of-living crisis.

LOCAL INTERVENTION IN THE COST-OF-LIVING CRISIS: The Tekirdağ Model in Social Municipalism

The structure of the free-market economy, which prioritizes individual interests, deepens the problems of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups along with distortions in income distribution. Poverty and food insecurity are no longer an individual deficiency; they have become a direct public issue. This situation imposes a more active and decisive role on local governments within the framework of the social welfare state concept.

In times of economic crisis, food security for local governments is not just a social policy heading; it is one of the fundamental elements of public health and social solidarity. Policies aimed at affordable and accessible food function as a structural intervention that directly reduces the pressure on the household budget, going beyond classical social assistance.

In this framework, the city restaurants of the Tekirdağ Metropolitan Municipality stand out as a permanent support mechanism that directly responds to the basic nutritional needs of low-income groups, beyond the concept of social assistance. These practices, which limit food expenditures, assume a critical public function that reduces social vulnerability in crisis conditions.

THE TEKİRDAĞ MODEL: FROM CITY RESTAURANTS TO TEK MARKET

The practices recently implemented by the Tekirdağ Metropolitan Municipality offer a concrete example of public interventions developed against the deepening cost-of-living crisis in Turkey. The municipality's service prices clearly show how it reduces daily living costs through public support. For example, water is 15 TL, tea is 15 TL, and a simit is 20 TL at TEKTUR cafes; while a meal consisting of four courses is offered at 95 TL at the City Restaurant. Considering that a single meal in the market is well above these prices, these mechanisms function as a de facto hunger buffer.

Let's assume a family of four meets two meals a day at the City Restaurant and their breakfast with tea and simit:

• Daily lunch and dinner: 95 TL × 2 meals × 4 people = 760 TL › 22,800 TL per month

• Daily breakfast (tea+simit): (15+20) × 4 = 140 TL › 4,200 TL per month

• Total monthly food expenditure: 27,000 TL

Compared to the TÜRK-İŞ February 2026 hunger threshold data (32,365 TL), the Tekirdağ model provides a food expenditure saving of approximately 16.6%. This shows the capacity of social municipalism to directly reduce living costs.

THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL MUNICIPALISM

Increasing the number of city restaurants to four reveals that this practice is not a temporary measure but a permanent social policy. In addition, the TEK Market applications of the Tekirdağ Metropolitan Municipality aim to support the local producer while giving the citizen's budget a breather. 

The number of TEK Markets, which first opened in Süleymanpaşa and attracted great interest in a short time, is being gradually increased. It is planned to expand this model so that there is at least one market in each of the province's 11 districts.

In TEK Markets, where products of women producers as well as producer unions and cooperatives are on the shelves, meat products obtained from the Malkara Meat Combination Facility are also brought to the consumer. Thus, while ensuring that citizens can access basic food products at more accessible prices, the local producer's access to the market is strengthened, contributing to the regional economy.

In addition to this, the municipality has established a wide support network ranging from home cleaning, hairdresser, and personal care services to patient transport services; medical supply provision, wheelchair repair, food parcels, and newborn packages. Psychosocial support and children's workshops, women's handmade production workshops, and agricultural-rural development projects turn social municipalism from a policy based solely on aid into a holistic system that strengthens social welfare.

Another important pillar of social support policies is cash assistance. Education aid, pensioner market support, and financial aid provided in disaster situations such as fires, earthquakes, and floods aim to alleviate the economic burden of low-income households. Women's handmade workshops contribute to the social and economic empowerment of women by encouraging their participation in production processes.

Projects supporting agriculture and rural development also constitute an important dimension of the social municipalism concept. Numerous projects, ranging from supporting beekeeping activities to developing viticulture, from expanding forage crop planting areas to supporting small ruminant livestock, provide direct contributions to producers. While production costs are reduced with diesel support, compound feed, and lamb-kid feed support, infrastructure investments such as the construction of watering facilities and the maintenance of field, vineyard, and olive grove roads also strengthen the sustainability of rural production.

The resulting picture clearly shows how critical a role social support mechanisms play in alleviating the pressure, especially on food and basic living expenses. At the same time, these practices also reveal why social policies have become a vital necessity for increasingly larger masses in a period when economic conditions are becoming difficult. These comprehensive practices implemented by the Tekirdağ Metropolitan Municipality concretely show that social municipalism is not just aid-based, but a holistic management approach that strengthens production, solidarity, and social welfare together.

THE BURDEN ON THE SHOULDERS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Under normal conditions, the fight against hunger and affordable nutrition policies fall under the primary responsibility of the central government. However, in an economy where the minimum wage is structurally insufficient in Turkey, this responsibility has effectively been loaded onto the shoulders of local governments.

The fact that the poverty threshold announced by TÜRK-İŞ has reached 105,425 TL clearly reveals why this burden has remained with the municipalities. When central wage policy becomes unable to meet basic living costs, local governments become the last line of defense that slows down social collapse.

The spread of city restaurants, the institutionalization of suspended meal practices, cheap water, meat, bread, and basic food services emerge as tools to compensate for the deepening loss of welfare, not for an increase in welfare. If the minimum wage remains below the hunger threshold, and city restaurants turn into a mandatory lifeline rather than a social preference, the problem is not that municipalities are “too social,” but in central policies that cannot protect labor.

This picture makes the importance of social municipalism even clearer: Local governments play a vital role in ensuring social solidarity, improving the living conditions of vulnerable groups, and slowing down social disintegration. However, a permanent solution will be possible not from the kitchens of municipalities, but with a wage policy that is sufficient for a humane life and fair income distribution from the central government.

While the social services offered by local governments provide a temporary breath, a strong cooperation between central and local governments and fair wage policies based on the cost of living are essential for sustainable welfare. Social municipalism is no longer a preference; it is a mandatory solidarity mechanism that fills the social void created by the economic crisis and livelihood difficulties.

CONCLUSION: Solidarity Saves Lives While the Cost-of-Living Crisis Grows

In Turkey, the minimum wage is no longer just a low base; it has turned into a fragile income level that determines the average standard of living for millions of workers. This wage, which remains below the hunger threshold, reveals that the distance between economic growth figures and the citizen's kitchen is widening dramatically.

In such a picture, social municipalism stands out not just as a preference of local governments, but as a vital solidarity mechanism that slows down social disintegration. The structure of the free-market economy, which prioritizes individual interests, makes the problems of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups more visible along with the deterioration in income distribution.

While the social welfare state concept reminds us of the public's responsibility with social assistance, social service, and social policy tools, social municipalism constitutes the most concrete reflection of this approach at the local level. The policies of the Tekirdağ Metropolitan Municipality, ranging from city restaurants to TEK Market applications, from social support programs to rural development projects that support the producer, reveal a holistic public intervention model developed from the local level.

However, it should not be forgotten that the solidarity networks established by municipalities cannot replace a fair and sustainable wage policy. A permanent solution lies in an economic order where labor is secured with an income sufficient for a humane life and where the social state functions effectively with all its institutions.

For this reason, it is of great importance to expand city restaurants, increase low-cost nursery services, make social assistance planned and inclusive, and provide stronger financial and administrative support to local governments.

As a result, in a period when the cost-of-living crisis is deepening, social municipalism functions as a critical guarantee that keeps social solidarity alive. However, Turkey's ability to reach a fairer, more egalitarian, and sustainable social structure depends on establishing strong cooperation between central and local governments and implementing a fair wage policy based on the cost of living. This cooperation is no longer a preference, but a mandatory requirement for the sustainability of social welfare.