Duran Bülbül: The announced minimum wage is a level at which not even one person can sustain their life

Gizem Yaralı-12punto

Public Economist and Finance Expert Prof. Dr. Duran Bülbül shared his evaluations with 12punto.com.tr after the minimum wage, which will affect millions, was announced as 17,002 lira.

Bülbül's evaluations are as follows:

In fact, how they arrived at 17,002 lira and which economic, social, inflation, budget, hunger, or poverty thresholds they based it on is a mystery. No matter how you look at it, a figure of 17,002 lira is simply out of the question. I believe the political power and the unions participating in the minimum wage negotiations do not live in this country, as far as I can tell. A new definition needs to be made regarding the concepts of hunger and poverty according to their worldview. A new understanding or a new scientific perspective needs to be created. Now, one must look at it this way: if I look at the increase in the budget, the minimum wage should not be at this level. If I look at inflation rates, the minimum wage should still not be at this level. If I look at the increase in personnel expenditures in the budget, it should still not be this. I want to state them in order; if we really look at the global increase in the budget, the budget has risen from 4.5 trillion to 11 trillion. Then the minimum wage should have increased by at least 100%. In that case, the minimum wage should be around 22,800 TL at the very least. If we were to set the minimum wage based on the increase in the 2024 budget, personnel expenditures, which were 960 billion lira in the 2023 budget, have risen to 2 trillion 800 billion. Then the minimum wage should have increased by at least 3 times, which would mean it should be 34,200 TL. The government should also provide incentives and support for employers regarding their share of insurance premiums.

The minimum wage means this: it is the process of determining and exempting from tax an income sufficient for a family to sustain its livelihood. Yes, then I want to say this: I think the unions understand one person in a family. The political power also understands one person when we say family, but this person, as far as I can tell, is not married; they are a single person.

The current minimum wage, as far as I understand and according to all the calculations I have made, has been calculated based on only one person. That is, it has been prepared based on a single person sustaining their own livelihood. In this respect, it must be said that in the last twenty years, the AKP government has unfortunately shrunk the size of the Turkish family, and with impoverishment, families have become smaller and even poorer; that is why, when we look, our average family size, which was around 4-4.5, has fallen to the level of three. Then the action that needs to be taken is very clear: the current minimum wage should be 51,006 TL.

According to the increase in personnel expenditures in the 2024 budget, the minimum wage should be 34,006 TL. In fact, when the hunger threshold is recalculated in January, we will see that the current minimum wage has once again fallen below the hunger threshold. In this regard, moreover, as I had previously stated on television and in newspapers, I said that the political power is now moving towards setting the minimum wage once a year, or even freezing it. It gave the signal for this in the 2024 budget and limited the minimum wage increase to one year.

When we calculate that inflation will be over 100% in 2024, this minimum wage is a wage level at which not even one person can sustain their life for a humane existence, and it is unsustainable.

According to the government's own figures, according to the current announcements, when we calculate inflation for 2023 on a monthly basis, it never falls below 110%. For 2024, when we look at it in terms of this expansionary fiscal and expansionary economic policy, it already appears that inflation will be around 150%, and the equivalent of this today is a 49% increase in the minimum wage; that is, it means that prices will increase by 150% in the coming period of 2024, which will lead to grave consequences for social peace in Turkey.

I could not make sense of the announced 17,002 TL, even for a single person, but I think I understood the 2 TL. I think the reason for that is the welfare share that the government and the unions sitting at the negotiation table deem appropriate for the citizens.

News Source: Gizem Yaralı